


we're just dancing in the dark

by element78



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Memory Loss, Transformation, absolutely no research done into the proper historical setting, brief description of animal death as associated with hunting, curses and spells and such, fairytale AU, no capes AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25798582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/element78/pseuds/element78
Summary: Deep in the forest, there is a mysterious old man, a cursed manor, a blue-eyed wolf following his every move, and a hauntingly familiar young man who knows something he is not sharing.Jason, a hunter in the nearby village, is just trying to survive the winter.  But he'll have to unravel the mystery of it all, including his own missing memories, if he wants to protect the people he cares about and save himself.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 41
Kudos: 197
Collections: JayDick Summer Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [naol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naol/gifts).



> Give me a one-line prompt, get, well. This, obviously.
> 
> This fic gave a nod of acknowledgement to the original prompt before barreling merrily on its way. I apologize to my giftee. I had no idea it was going to turn out like this, either.

For all the scarring, the leg didn’t bother him so much anymore. 

It took his weight without complaint or hesitation, never buckled or showed any sign of weakness, didn’t tire faster than its counterpart. The skin over the knee was roped with raised red tissue, far too new to have begun the fade into white, but the knee itself worked fine, and Jason knew himself unspeakably lucky for it. Still, it was newly healed, and he knew all too well how an injury supposedly well-healed could turn sour if it was overworked too soon, so he made sure to take breaks and let it rest.

It was on one of those breaks, on an otherwise unremarkable day in the woods, when he first saw it.

Even in winter, the forest breathed around him, naked limbs rattling together like old bones, leaves that hadn’t the sense to fall in autumn rustling, snow shifting and sighing as it fell from branches. Animals moved through the trees, foxes ghosting on silent paws and crows on noisy wings- but the _snap_ of the twig behind him felt too deliberate. He lifted his head from his inspection of the rope snare he had half-buried in the snow between his feet, turned in a slow careful movement to look-

There was a figure in the woods, distant and dark and watchful, its shape broken up by the trunks of the trees between them. Jason watched it, and felt it watch him, until it turned and moved away. The snow was too deep for Jason to rise to his feet both quickly and quietly, so he floundered gracelessly instead as he rose and followed a few steps after it- it had to have been a deer, and a massive one, food for his people in the village for weeks.

There was nothing there, of course. Even the snow was too packed down between the broad old trees for him to get a good reading on the tracks. He drew his coat tighter around him and blew his breath out, watching it freeze and billow before him. The four rabbits he had retrieved from his other snares so far would have to do, although it would be three by the time he made it home.

He returned to his trail, running parallel to but not within sight of the main road that bisected the forest, and kept his hood up and his head down. There was nothing of interest in these woods, not anymore.

If he felt eyes on him, it was most likely just the deer again, so he did not turn around to look, and soon enough it faded away. And he trekked on.

* * *

The cottage was small, cozy, stone-walled and wood-roofed, with real glass windows with heavy curtains tacked up over them inside, and a chimney that gently billowed white smoke into the sky. The old man sat at the table he had set up outside it, cup of tea in one hand and book in the other, and he watched Jason approach with a quiet expression.

“Good afternoon, Jason,” he said politely, in his cultured voice and strange accent.

“Good afternoon, Alfred,” Jason returned, equally as polite. He stopped by the chair on the opposite side of the table, waiting for an invitation, and only sat when Alfred gestured for him to.

“How is the leg?” Alfred asked. He had good cause to ask, as he had seen the injury brand new and bleeding Jason’s life out onto the tender green grass of early summer.

“Holding up,” Jason replied. “How’s the tea?”

Alfred made a face, the first crack in the politely impersonal facade, and looked at the cup in his hand. “Not what I prefer, but it will do,” he said, and passed the second cup over. It was still warm in Jason’s hands, still whispering steam into the frozen air. Jason took a sip and tasted sugar and a touch of milk, as he liked it, and smiled into the cup.

It had become a habit, sharing tea once a week with this peculiar old man who had saved his life. It had started in the spring, during the two weeks Jason had spent sleeping on the floor of Alfred’s house, healing and recovering his strength for the journey back to the village. It had continued in autumn, when he had finally been able to manage the long walk back in order to express his gratitude. It was tradition now, and no amount of snow or pain would put it off.

If he were being honest, Jason was worried about this strange old man all by himself in the woods, rescuing dying strangers and drinking tea in the open with his back turned to the treeline. He came here once a week, expecting every time to come upon a scene of slaughter, blood smeared on the snow and death-scent in the air.

“Have you finished the book you borrowed?” Alfred asked, and Jason hummed around a mouthful of tea and put the cup down to reach into the pouch strapped under his coat.

“Yes, here,” he said, placing the book on the table and sliding it across. He looked up, trying to corral his expression into curiosity instead of hope. “Have you read it?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Alfred said mournfully, picking the book up and turning it over to look at the cover. “For as long as these have dwelt in my library, the love stories of young women have never much appealed to me.”

Were it anyone else, Jason would feel the need to defend the book, explain that it wasn’t just a love story, that it was a profound story of a young woman discovering herself and finding a place for herself in the world, and the love story was secondary. But Alfred didn’t mean it as a criticism, so he let it be.

“Here,” Alfred said, and slid the other book over. “By the same author.”

Jason picked it up carefully, respectfully, and pushed his coat aside to tuck it into the same pouch. He settled it back into place, smoothing a palm down his side, and returned to his tea, only to see Alfred was staring at it. “What?” he asked, although he knew. They had had this conversation before.

“The color seems even more inappropriate than ever,” Alfred said, an explanation. An old fight, and not one he seemed keen on restarting.

Jason touched his fingers to his coat again. It was dark wool with a softer fabric inside, well-woven and well-worn. It had protected him from rain, snow, teeth, and the occasional deer hoof, and he rewarded it by minding it and mending it with all his skill. He didn’t remember where it had come from, only that he had started wearing it years ago when he had yet to grow into it, and it has served him well since. 

Alfred’s complaint, of course, is the hood- wool like the rest of it, but a deep vibrant red instead of dark brown, shocking like blood spilled on snow.

“It’s fine,” Jason said. “I can hide it when I need to.” He demonstrated as he spoke, pushing his coat off his shoulders enough to tuck the hood down so it was hidden down the back.

“You should have it dyed come spring,” Alfred ordered mildly.

Jason said nothing to that, just hummed. He wouldn’t- they had discussed it often enough that Alfred had to know it by now. Even just thinking about changing it made him feel _wrong_.

“Here,” he said instead, pulling on the cord slung over his shoulder and bringing the rabbits around. He loosened the loops around one’s feet and put the cold-stiff body on the table between them, grinning at Alfred’s disgruntled expression.

“I have told you before, Jason, I don’t need your pity,” he said sternly. “There are people in your village who depend on your generosity, and I am quite capable of fending for myself.”

That was true. Alfred was never lacking in tea or sugar, rarities that the village went months at a time without, and never seemed to be starving. Still, Jason left the rabbit on the table, slurping rudely at the last of his tea as a distraction, and Alfred did not try to push it away.

They sat in silence for a minute, the air between them comfortable enough, each of them thinking his own thoughts. It was interrupted by a noise in the treeline, a slither and a squeak. Jason looked over in time to see a fox darting away with a mouthful of squirming mouse, a blaze of autumn against the dirty white snow.

“There’s a deer in this part of the woods, a big one,” Jason said, watching the fox disappear with its catch. “I’ll be on its trail tomorrow, and the village will have plenty of meat.”

“Watch out for the wolves,” Alfred said, as he always did. “They deserve to eat as well.”

“Of course,” Jason agreed, as he always did. Alfred had been strangely protective of the forest’s wolves from the day they had met, and he was well-used to it by now. 

He stood up and stepped back, resettling the rabbits on his back and pulling his hood up over his head. As usual, it settled something within him, made him feel somehow safer. “Thanks for the tea,” he said.

“Thank you for the company,” Alfred replied. “It is always appreciated. Take care on your way home.”

“Always,” Jason promised with a grin. He checked one last time to make sure the rabbit was still on the table- Alfred had committed some sleight of hand once, and returned a quail to Jason’s string of catches, and he had been on the look-out ever since- before turning and walking away without lingering or looking back.

He had a long way to go, after all.

* * *

The walk back to the village was long, made longer by the extra half hour Jason had to give to circling the river when he found his original crossing point had flooded- it was barely midwinter, still far too early in the season, too warm in the afternoons, to be trusting his weight to the ice. There was no other sign of the deer, or any living thing in the trees, but Jason only paid it cursory attention. It was mid-afternoon, the shadows already long and slanting from winter’s early sunset, and he wanted to get home before it got properly dark.

It was in the air that settled cold and brittle in his lungs, under the sound of branches clattering and ice creaking, hidden somewhere in the eye-trickery of grey tree trunks against old grey snow- but he was sure he was being followed, and several points along the way even stopped, ducked behind a tree, doubled back- and never saw anything. It was paranoia from the stillness when he was used to busyness and life, he decided after the third time he found himself staring at a shape in the distance and waiting for it to move, only to realize that it was a bush or a rock. He took a moment, coaxed himself into settling down as he breathed deep and held it down, before he moved on again.

He checked the snares nearest to the village and went away empty-handed and unsurprised- the pickings were thin there year round, close to the bustle of the village as it was. He stayed there a moment anyways, one knee braced in the snow, feeling the tension crawling up his shoulders into his neck. He took one deep breath, then stood, and started walking, finding the path beaten into the ground and following it out of the forest.

The guard at the village gate was one of the less objectionable ones, but he was still one of the lord’s men. He was dressed in heavy wools and thick furs, well-polished metal glinting over his chest, at his wrists, and the sword sheathed at his waist carried an actual edge. Everything Jason owned, even his coat that must have been so expensive before years’ worth of wear, didn’t equal one single piece of the guard’s outfit.

“Slim pickings today, Red?” he asked with a smirk as Jason walked past him with his head ducked low. The guards were not there to protect the village, for all that they stood at the entrances and faced outward. They were there to mingle, to listen, to report whispers of unrest to the lord, who ruled his kingdom of a city and usually forgot the outer lands existed until he needed something from them.

“It’s winter,” he said by way of explanation.

“Perhaps the beasties of the woods aren’t as colorblind as you hope,” the guard continued, obviously bored and not willing to let go of this distraction easily.

Jason glanced back over his shoulder, unable to help himself, catching a glimpse out of the corner of his eye- red as fresh blood on autumn leaves, red as a rabbit’s life spilling onto the snow.

“It keeps the wolves away,” he said, because _I don’t want to_ wouldn’t work there as it did with Alfred.

The guard laughed, mocking the simple village boy who believed such superstitions, and waved him on, and Jason went with his tongue held so tight between his teeth that he could taste blood.

The village was settled in for a long winter- oiled skins tacked over glass windows to keep out the cold and the wind, the great doors to the town hall closed, blankets of roughspun wool on the backs of horses and goats. The baker’s house had a mountain of wood piled on its leeward side, and smoke piling into the sky above it through a chimney big enough for a man to climb down, and the baker’s wife was red-faced and sweaty from working in the oven room when she came to the door and bought a rabbit off of Jason. She gutted it on the spot with a wickedly sharp bread knife, spilling its entrails into the snow just outside the door, to the delight of the half-dozen cats wending between legs and heartily demanding their share. They were well cared for in that house, as they were the baker’s only real line of defense against having his livelihood nibbled on by mice and rats. Jason pet one of the friendlier ones, then stepped over the one that had taken its share away to eat by his boots, and went on his way.

The stream that cut through the northern end of the village and turned the wheel at the mill would soon freeze, and the wheel would stand still. For the time being, the miller’s family worked frantically to grind the last of the autumn wheat. The miller’s oldest daughter came to the door when Jason knocked and performed a similar ritual for the mill’s cats, who were treated just as well as the bakery’s.

There was a small crowd near the town hall, which took pride of place at the heart of the village. Jason watched them for a moment, as they huddled together against the bite of the wind and glanced occasionally towards the road out of the village. They had come together between his stop at the bakery and his stop at the mill, and he could see the baker’s wife among them. He could guess what they were discussing- three rabbits for a hard day’s work, and the autumn harvest had been hit hard by an early freeze, and the chickens weren’t laying like they should, and, and, and. He watched them, then he turned away.

It would be a lean winter, which was fine, those things happened. Except last year had been a lean winter, and the one before that, and they were getting leaner as the years went on.

Where the stream turned north and fed water into the sprawling farmland, Jason went east, to the cluster of homes belonging to the people who worked at, but did not live in, the farms, the mill, the bakery, the smith, the tannery. They stood away from the shops, which stood lining the main road, and were bracketed on two sides by a line of tall fir trees that blocked the wind and the snowdrift. They were patched, walls and roofs, and were grimy with old snow and soot from chimney smoke. They were honest, more so than the scrubbed-clean faces the shops presented to the world.

The house nearest the intersection of the two tree lines stood cold and dark. Jason opened the door and ducked in and breathed out to watch his breath drift on the air. It was as cold inside as it was out, the cookfire in the kitchen long burned away to the faintest embers from the morning’s breakfast. Jason had not been home all day, and it seemed the house’s other occupant had also been absent a good while.

On the table in the kitchen where they ate, near the pile of dishes neither of them had gotten around to cleaning that day, was a note written by a hurried hand on a spare scrap of paper. _Midwifing, be back by sunset_.

He looked back out the door behind him, at the grey gloom of twilight. Sunset came early this time of year, the shadows slanting hard and long by noon, darkness creeping up like a fog bank, faint and weak until it had suddenly swallowed the world and it was all you could see. She wouldn’t be back by sunset. He’d be surprised if she was back by midnight.

Just inside the door was an iron rack with firewood on it, brought in from the stack out in the snow to dry out. He took the pieces from the top and stacked them near the fireplace in the kitchen, blowing on the embers and feeding them dried twigs and autumn leaves until the fire was strong enough to survive a split log placed directly on it. He stayed knelt by the fire for a long moment, until it was chewing contentedly at the wood and was worming its warmth under his coat and melting the ice in his veins.

Then he stood and fetched the last rabbit and an iron cooking pot, and set to work.

* * *

The cookfire was burning out again, the house as warm now as it would ever be during winter, when Leslie finally returned for the night. Jason waited for her anyway, as he always did.

“Sorry,” she said as he set his book aside and stood up to ladle the stew into a bowl. He could have done it a while ago, when it became apparent her food would be cold long before she came back, but the cookpot was still hot to the touch, the stew lukewarm. He plopped the heel of the loaf of bread into the bowl and put it on the table at her seat as she hung her bag by the door. “Pembroke the farmer’s wife had twins and one of them was breech.”

“Everything all right?” he asked, reclaiming his seat and picking the book back up. The village kept Leslie well-stocked in candles, believing that as a physicker she spent all moments not actually helping people with doing other smart-people things like reading or tallying sums. Even so, to burn one for this still felt wasteful to the point of sacrilege.

“Oh, yes, both girls and their mother are resting comfortably,” she agreed, and her expression darkened. “The father was not happy with two more mouths to feed instead of just one, and both attached to girlchildren, but I made it clear that no tragic accident was to befall any of them.” She paused and turned her spoon just so, spilling stew back into the bowl but keeping the chunk of rabbit meat for inspection. “How was hunting?” she asked, sounding as though she already knew.

“Bad,” Jason said. “Although I did see something big, so there’s likely deer nearby. I’ll head back out tomorrow.”

Leslie spooned up more stew. “You should stay in, go easy on that leg,” she said, nodding towards the table, and Jason’s scarred knee underneath. “We can’t have you out of commission for another two months, not now.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jason said. “And if it’s the difference between starving and not-”

“No one’s starving,” Leslie cut in. “We’re not that bad off.” She looked away as she said it, down at the stew, and Jason knew she was being generous. They weren’t that bad off, _yet_. But the hardest part of winter was a month away still, and they were already sliding uncomfortably close to the knife’s edge.

He tapped his fingers against the book in his hand in a steady pattern. The title page had been carefully, meticulously removed for some reason, but a single shred of paper had clung on and hung off the spine, and Jason rubbed it back and forth with his thumb until it slowly tore itself free. All of the books Alfred lent him had the title page removed, for reasons Jason had never bothered asking after.

It was a long walk, especially two days in a row. But if there really was a deer out there, in a forest that had not seen deer since the bitterness of the previous winter had driven them away…

“I’m going to bed,” he said, rising to put action to words as he spoke.

“Jason,” Leslie began.

“I’ll stay close to the village,” he said, and she turned her dark tired eyes on him, staring at him, through him, until she turned away again. Whether or not she knew he was lying, he couldn’t guess.

“Sleep well,” she said, and he walked away.

The house had three rooms- the entry room, the kitchen, the bedroom with no windows and a door to close against the cold of the rest of the house. He put the book under his pillow and slid under the pile of blankets, his coat spread on top of the pile. It was, if he ducked his head under the covers, almost warm, especially once he tucked the blankets under his own body and then hunted down the gaps still letting the cold in. When it got worse, and it would get worse, they would move into the kitchen instead, and take turns tending the fire, and sleep curled up on the floor like puppies. But for now, this was tolerable.

He slid a hand under his pillow and touched his fingertips to the book, allowing himself a single moment to imagine the life in its pages- warm buttery summers, mellow winters with picturesque snowfall, soft-eyed men with gentle smiles and fierce passionate women.

Then he closed his eyes, and despite the shivers still subtly wracking his frame, exhaustion seized him by the throat and dragged him under in minutes.

* * *

He tucked his hood under his coat when he left the village the next day, as if hiding that blaze of blood-red would disguise that it was him. He knew Leslie wasn’t watching him- she’d still been asleep when he got up at dawn, and when she woke she would be going to the Pembroke farm to check in on the newborns and their mother- but he felt compelled nonetheless to hide. She had taken him in as a child, given him a place to live and a steady friend, and he couldn’t even do this one simple thing for her.

It was earlier than he usually went out, as dusk was the best time for prey animals such as deer, but the dim light of late afternoon wasn’t conducive to spotting and following tracks. He went a different way around, checking on snares he hadn’t gotten to the day before, keeping one eye on the grungy snow at all times as he looped his way back around to the trail where he had seen the animal yesterday.

He rested in the same spot as the day before, checked the same snares- still nothing, nothing at all, and part of it was because it had been barely twelve hours but he listened to the woods around him and shivered at its silence- and watched the trees.

He became aware, slowly, that something was watching him too.

It was an instinct, a whisper of awareness that had the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He searched around him, shifting on the spot slowly and carefully, and saw nothing. It didn’t help, the tension coiling under his skin, and he rose to his feet and headed into the trees, ducking behind a particularly big one and lingering for a few moments.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye, and he snapped around fast and saw it properly this time. Big and dark, head low and ears up, dark fur against a pale grey wash and mouth lolling open for a brief glimpse of startlingly pink tongue. It loped between the trees, nearly silent on its big paws, and disappeared between one tree and the next, and Jason pressed his back against his own tree and held his breath.

A wolf.

A big wolf, big and black and aware of him, _watching_ him, and now out of sight. He dropped a hand to the sheath on his waist, wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his knife, inconsequential compared to the shockingly white teeth he had caught a heartbeat’s glimpse of. He had spotted a wolf yesterday, not a deer, and had come back today and put himself back in its territory, and now it knew he was there.

He had never seriously considered that there truly were wolves in the woods, for all that Alfred liked to warn him-

_Alfred_.

Jason jerked away from the tree and took two steps before he checked himself and stilled. Alfred had survived who knew how many years living in this forest, and had known to warn Jason of the wolves, so clearly he was aware of the danger. Rushing off now would only get Jason himself killed- he knew enough to know running from big predators was asking to be chased.

He stood there for as long as he dared, silent in the stillness of the winter woods, listening hard for the soft crunch of old snow under paws or the harsh blowing of breath as a large body approached at a run. When it had been quiet for long enough, and the anxiety was burning like acid under his skin, he finally started moving. He returned to the trail, for all the false safety it would offer him, and turned away from the direction of the village.

There was being aware of the danger in general, and then there was being aware of the specific danger of a large wolf in the immediate area. He needed to warn Alfred, would not be able to live with himself if he didn’t lay eyes on the old man and see that he was still alive and well.

He only just didn’t run, and whether they were there or not, he felt eyes on him every step of the way.

* * *

Alfred’s cottage was in a clearing, ringed by stumps from trees cut down to make the building and provide firewood. Jason had seen no hint of the wolf after that first glimpse of it, and he dared to break into a run when he caught sight of the clearing between the trees.

“Alfred!” he yelled as he burst into the clearing. No sign of the old man, of course- Jason had never visited two days in a row, he wouldn’t have expected a guest. The table was bare and the chimney was breathing only wisps of smoke. Jason called out again as he approached the cottage, then stopped abruptly near the door, biting off Alfred’s name mid-syllable.

The snow in the clearing had been beaten down over time by the old man’s feet as he worked and walked around, but- there, and there. Worn into the tracks, laying over the bootprints, a pawprint, from a very big animal.

Jason darted over to the door and held his breath as he knocked, then tried the knob. “Alfred?” he called again as the door swung open, and he braced himself.

The cottage smelled like tea and old books, not blood and death. Jason took a moment to let the relief scour through him, then went inside to look around. The kitchen was better stocked than any in the village, with a bucket of small potatoes and gnarled carrots, a sack of flour stamped with the insignia of the village’s mill, even- somehow, impossibly- a smoke-dried venison steak. Jason looked around blankly, feeling too many things to bother feeling betrayed at that moment, then turned away.

The bedroom had two beds, one dusty and turned down like it was rarely used, and a wool blanket spread out on the floor. Along one wall was a small row of shelves lined with books, few of which Jason recognized. Odd, since he had read a good portion of Alfred’s small library when he was stuck there waiting for his leg to heal.

He turned away and left the bedroom, went back into the kitchen and sighed. Alfred was most likely off doing whatever he did to procure his supplies, and Jason would need to wait until next week to check up on him again. He knelt down near the fireplace to check how warm it was, how recently it had burned, then rose again. The oilcloth over the kitchen window had been tacked up out of the way so it was letting in sunlight, and he stepped closer to look. The window looked out at the forest behind the cottage and he could have sworn he saw a large black form move in the trees.

Then he blinked, and looked closer, and a moment later was closing the cottage door behind him and looping around the building.

Behind the cottage was another path, as well-worn as the one leading to the front door. For all the time Jason had spent here, he had not been allowed to circle around behind the cottage, kept out front by Alfred greeting him in the yard with tea and a new book to read.

He looked, but there was no sign of the wolf in the trees, no pawprints on this trail. Just a path into the woods, leading- somewhere. He stepped forward, one step beyond the treeline, then another, at war with himself. Alfred wouldn’t thank him for intruding- but he had known Alfred less than a year, and his instinctive like and respect for the man made no sense. He was prying into something that was none of his business- but something insisted he deserved these answers.

He was out of sight of the cottage now. The wolf could have walked right up to him and he wouldn’t have noticed until it bit him. He shook off the internal debate and settled himself, and followed the trail.

It led east, deeper into the forest, into the oldest heart of the woods where the trees were tall and ancient, branches spread wide to choke out the life at their feet. It pushed on, deeper and deeper still, and Jason followed it. His shadow grew long and he began to regret not bringing something to eat on the way, and his knee was beginning to twinge with too much activity and too little rest. Ten minutes more, he promised himself, and then five minutes after that.

And then he slid, his boot hitting something slick and hard that was not packed-down snow, and he caught himself before he wrenched his bad knee by sheer luck. He sidestepped onto the snow and kicked at the ground he had slid on. A rock, the snow on top of it trampled down so heavily it had melted and refrozen into ice. Just a rock- but an oddly shaped one. Jason knelt and picked at the ice until it flaked up enough to reveal a second rock pressed up against the first, and a third pressed beside it, and more beyond that. Not rocks at all, but paving stones. He had found a proper path in these woods.

He stayed off the actual path, not keen on slipping on icy rock and freezing to death because he couldn’t walk on a busted ankle or knee, but he followed it again. It no longer snaked between the trees like a deer trail, but barged straight ahead, the forest pulling back and granting it right of way. It came eventually to a wall, winter-dead ivy and other climbing plants optimistically scaling it and hiding its true nature. Jason tugged at it, but it had had years to grow, and had anchored itself well. He dared to push a hand through it, and grabbed when he felt something solid under the vines. Cold and solid, round and narrow in his grip- something metal?

He took a double handful of vines and pulled, digging his feet in and putting his weight behind it, and the ivy eventually yielded, tearing at its weakest hold near the top and falling away, and Jason stepped back.

A gate. The path in the woods had led him to a wall with a gate. It had a large stylized _W_ in the center at the top and below it, arching from one side of the gate to the other, the phases of the moon.

He traced the gate to one side, and found its hinges fastened to a thick wall made of natural stone. The ivy had not overgrown that as much, having less nooks and crannies to cling to. He stepped back and looked in either direction, and could see no corners or gaps. The wall enclosed something large, then.

He came back to the gate and checked it closer. It was closed but not locked. A mark had been scratched into the ground under it, indicating the left side of the gate would move a few feet and had been opened fairly recently, for all that the place looked years abandoned.

Jason stepped back again and stared at the gate, still too choked with wilted ivy for him to see beyond it. He didn’t _need_ to see beyond it to know what was in there: trouble. And far behind him, his village, and a long walk home, and a sun beginning its slow descent to the horizon. If he left now, he might make it back in time to lie to Leslie about where he’d been and have it be halfway believable.

He stepped forward instead, dug his hands into the ivy to take hold of the gate and drag it open just far enough to let him slide through the gap, and he ducked through without looking back.


	2. Chapter 2

He called it a manor, the building on the other side of the gate, because he had read it somewhere once and he had no better word for it. It was to a house what a wolf was to a fox- bigger, yes, but also far more threatening.

It had what had likely been a garden once, and Jason stood at the entryway to that. Hedges presumably once neatly trimmed had grown wild and taken over the pathways that laced through the garden. What looked like a rosebush, complete with wicked thorns, had taken over one whole corner of the garden and was starting a leisurely climb up the outer wall. Carefully placed shade trees had grown into proper beasts, although one lay dead on its side, its trunk splintered like it had exploded.

And beyond it, the manor. The window count from floor to roof said there were three stories inside, and the window count from side to side said at least a dozen rooms on the front face alone. It was dark in the washed-out winter sunlight, its face an indeterminate color. Several windows had broken or had had entire panes of glass fall out of the frame, the roof was buckling in the eastern corner, and the great double doors at the front were sagging on their hinges. There was a building to the manor’s right- a stable, perhaps- that had given way entirely, its roof caved in and its walls collapsed outward.

It looked wrong. It looked wrong, it looked _defiled_ , and it made Jason angry somehow, like it was a personal slight to him, that this manor had been so badly treated.

He looked behind him through the gap in the gate, looked into the forest- for the wolf, for Alfred, he couldn’t say. Then he pushed the gate closed again and started up the garden path towards the manor.

The snow in the garden was undisturbed. If Alfred was coming to this place, he wasn’t using the main doors, and if he checked then it would be obvious that someone else had been here. But Jason walked up the path anyways, and climbed up the few stairs to the manor’s front stoop, and hesitated.

“Hello?” he called towards the doors, trying to peer into the building beyond without coming too close. It was too dark to see anything, but he could have sworn he heard voices inside speaking, even laughing. It grew stronger as he approached until he was sure he was hearing it, indistinct with distance and overlapping like whispers in a crowded room.

He stood for a while at the doors of this great mysterious manor in the woods, with its overgrown garden and collapsing roof and dark dusty windows, and listened to what sounded like an entire village’s worth of people inside. He wanted- he _needed_ \- he had to go in, it was an overwhelming urge, rising up his throat and choking on it, but he was so scared, more scared than he’d been in his life, and it was paralyzing him.

His hand was shaking as he reached up to touch the door. It felt like he was reaching through something solid, air thick as mud, the manor hunched over him like some big dark predator and whispering _stay away stay away stay away_ -

He had never let fear stop him before.

The door croaked on its hinges like an old crow as Jason swung it open, carefully propping it up so it didn’t break loose and fall down entirely. The weak sunlight spilled in through the doorway and shallowly illuminated the room beyond. A foyer, Jason thought, another word lifted from one of the books Alfred had lent him. It was a grand room, the floor polished wood with a large rug with a fancy pattern on it, the walls painted a green that had probably once evoked the idea of spring growth. Directly across the room from him was a grand staircase leading up to the third story, and there were several doors and hallways leading out of the foyer itself. Jason dared one step inside, then another, aiming for the stairs.

He made it three steps up, and then a boy came flying down the stairs at him.

He jerked away fast, bracing himself for the impact. But the boy hopped onto the bannister instead and slid down it, blowing past Jason without touching him. He shook himself and swore and pulled his coat tighter around him- how was it colder inside the manor than out?- and turned to scold the boy-

There was no one there.

Jason stared around blankly, then turned and looked back up the stairs- and there he was again, near the top of the stairs, peering through the bannister railing down at something in the foyer.

“How did you-?” Jason began, taking another step. His boot landed on rot-soft wood and he staggered for a moment, had to look down to find solid footing, and when he looked up the boy was gone again, and the delicately carved railing posts he had been looking through were broken and missing when seconds ago they had been whole.

Jason retreated, careful, clinging to the bannister as he moved backwards down the stairs, unwilling to look away from the spot the boy had been at. He made it to solid ground again and backed a few more steps away and dared to glance-

A woman and a man stood behind him.

Unlike the boy, they were standing still and not hiding, and Jason could see now that they were- _wrong_. Their colors- black hair for both of them, dressed in pale blue and yellow for the man, green and gold for the woman- were muted, as though they had stood there long enough to gather a layer of dust. Their heads were tipped towards each other and they were talking, and Jason could hear them, but their voices were distant like they were at the far end of a long hallway instead of steps away. They were watching the top of the stairs for something.

The man straightened with a smile, big and bright and handsome, and rolled his eyes and called _come on, --- ,we haven’t got all day_

He said a name in the middle of that sentence, Jason thought. It felt like a name would go there, had been there, had been carefully excised from the man’s words somehow.

“You’re- not real?” he said to the man, and reached out a hand to touch him. Both people vanished, shattering like glass, at the tiniest contact-

And the foyer was blazing with light, lamps along the walls and the chandelier that had not been there moments ago glittering with hundreds of candles, and there were people. Women with dresses that dipped scandalously low in the back and shining stones glittering at their throats and wrists, men in silks and light velvets, standing around talking or ambling towards a room beyond the stairs, probably some sort of ballroom. There was music now, and laughter, hollow and faint.

A couple walking arm-in-arm ran into Jason and dissolved, but the rest of the party stayed. And in the middle of it all, overlapping it but somehow distinct, were two forms. One was a young man, dark hair and blue eyes and a prettier face than any Jason had ever seen before. The other was a child, so faint and faded they were barely an outline. The young man smiled down at them, his expression tight and pinched, and put a hand on the child’s shoulder. _it’s nothing to do with you, don’t worry about it_

There was a hand on Jason’s shoulder, gripping a hair too tight, and Jason jerked around. No one there, of course.

The front doors opened and a man strode in, cloak hood up and hiding his face, and beyond him the boy from the stairs was walking on his hands down a path in the garden in full spring bloom.

Jason was shivering hard and breathing harder, gasping for air like something was choking him. He looked away from the hooded man, away from the young man and the child in the center of the room, away from the party around him. He squeezed his eyes shut and ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

The noise of the party swelled suddenly, and he jerked his head up to look-

\- the hand on his shoulder squeezed again, and the young man stepped away from the child, walked away-

\- the couple was back and they were talking to a third person, as faint and faded as the child-

\- a bright light flashed upstairs, bright as lightning in a night storm, bright as opening the door from a dark room and stepping into sunlight-

The doors stood open- but Jason had not opened them, had only pushed the one open as far as its rusted hinges would let him, and he smashed his shoulder into the closed door as he ran out of the manor. He staggered, off-balance from the impact, and fell down the stairs and landed on his knees in shallow snow in a pristine garden, the hedges trimmed, the roses clinging docilely to a trellis in the corner, but there were a handful of men with knives and cudgels prowling around, and a wolf howling in the distance, and when he looked back that light shone again from one of the third story windows-

The gate stood open but he knew better than to trust it this time, his shoulder still throbbing from the lie of the open doors, and he slowed down before he ran into it. He reached out a hand and touched it and it was there, and it had always been there, closed for the entirety of the short time he had known about it. He pushed the left gate open and ducked through and out into the forest. The air was almost warm compared to the bitter cold of inside the manor, and he could breathe again properly, although his head was hurting like he had smacked it into something without realizing it.

He dared to turn back and look- but all there was beyond the gate was the overgrown garden and the dark foreboding manor, Jason’s own footprints the only tracks in the snow.

_stay away_ the manor whispered, pushing, resisting- and Jason forgot the wolf, forgot Alfred, forgot his knee- and he turned and he ran.

* * *

He had been longer in the manor than he thought, or it had been later in the day than he’d realized- the sun was slanting long shadows from trees, dusk gloom already gathering around him. He would make it back to the village long after dark, assuming he made it at all- the pain in his head had started at the base of his skull as he ran from the manor and branched out as he ran, a deep pounding that echoed his heartbeat which he could feel now pulsing through his skull.

He could not run the whole way back, of course. He had not even made it to Alfred’s cottage before he had to stop and lean against a tree while his knee panged with genuine pain. He had been babying it these last few months, had not built up the resilience necessary for such hard use. He moved on when he could, moving through the forest faster than he usually dared, caring only about getting away from that cursed place.

It was during the third of such breaks that he saw the wolf.

It was crossing the trail he was taking, just close enough for Jason to see it in the gloom of encroaching twilight. Jason leaned against his tree and stared at the beast, and it stopped on the trail and stared back at him.

“Are you going to eat me?” he asked finally. The wolf flicked its ears at the sound of his voice, head ducked low and gaze trained on him, then turned and continued on its way into the trees. It did not go far, but it also was not behaving as a wolf on the hunt, so Jason ignored it. So few hours ago, and the wolf had been a threat worth nearly panicking over, but now it was an annoyance.

He pushed off from the tree, and swayed badly as the pain in his head stretched and dug its claws in. He gasped harshly and fell back again, misjudged his angle and smacked his hurting shoulder hard into the tree he had been leaning against.

For a moment, the pain in his head was secondary, the world gone white and coppery. When he returned to himself, he found he was laying on his side, curled around his bad arm, both hands cradling his skull. Something was tearing in his head, a dam bursting in his mind, and it hurt, it hurt, it hurt so much-

Air brushed over his face, and he realized he had closed his eyes. He opened them and saw the wolf. This close, he could see that its eyes were shockingly blue. 

“Are you going to eat me _now_?” Jason asked. He would have added, if he could, that the wolf would be doing him a favor, but that meant thinking through the splintering pain in his head.

The wolf snorted and retreated back into the fast-encroaching darkness of night. Jason watched it go, then closed his eyes again. His shoulder ached and his head throbbed sickeningly and his eyelids were so heavy, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

It felt as though he had barely blinked before something was touching him, hands rolling him over, voices speaking over him.

“- need to get him to Leslie, so unless you’ve got a horse and cart you’ve forgotten to mention, it’s the only way,” a voice said. It sounded hollow and distant in a different way than the voices at the manor had. Still, he thought he recognized it.

There was a light somewhere above him, shining through his eyelids as it shifted. “Very well,” a different voice said on a resigned sigh, and that one Jason definitely knew.

“I’ll be careful,” the first speaker promised.

“Be fast,” the second voice said. “You will not have much time to spare.”

“Keep him warm and stay safe.” There were hands on him, a body near his, and Jason noticed these only after they were gone, quiet footsteps disappearing into the distance. He wanted to open his eyes but the light already hurt enough.

There was a shifting noise, and then someone else was near him. A hand tugged at his coat collar, pulling it up higher.

“Go back to sleep, Jason,” Alfred ordered gently. “It will be better in the morning.”

Jason wanted to argue, but it seemed inevitable that he would obey. He turned his head a little, suffering through the aftershocks of pain in order to hide his eyes a little better from the light, and let himself drift off once more.

* * *

He woke up, which was something of a surprise.

He woke up in his own bed, to a head that did not hurt at all and a shoulder that only ached when he tried to move it too fast, which was even more of a surprise. He tested his shoulder, tested his knee, dared to lift his head and open his eyes. As Alfred had promised, as he vaguely remembered, it was better now.

There was a noise, and Jason looked to the doorway. Leslie looked down on him with an unreadable expression.

“Drink this,” she ordered, holding a steaming mug out towards him. “And be kind to that arm, you nearly dislocated your shoulder.”

“How did I make it back here?” Jason asked, pushing himself up on his elbow so he could take the mug with his good hand. Its contents smelled medicinal, and was probably very good for him while tasting very bad, and if he didn’t drink it all Leslie would likely sit on his chest and make him.

“I convinced the miller to ride out with a cart for you. It was much earlier in the morning than he cares to wake up.”

“But how-?” There had been someone else there, hadn’t there? Someone who had run to the village while Alfred stayed with him. But who was that?

“Drink your tea,” Leslie said, and Jason took a sip, and she ducked out of the room while he was choking back the urge to spit it back out.

He came into the kitchen a few minutes later and set the empty mug on the table before slowly sitting down. His knee was stiff and achy, but that was simply overuse, and there was nothing for it but to go easy on it today and work it again tomorrow, until it had built strength back up. Leslie was bustling around the kitchen, scraping at eggs in a pan, slathering jelly onto slices off a small loaf of bread, very calmly ignoring Jason.

“What do you know about the manor in the woods?” he asked after several minutes of sitting and watching her work. She didn’t even pause.

“The Wayne Manor,” she said evenly as she slid a plate over to Jason. A small heap of eggs, two slices of toast, a cup of water to wash away the sticky grossness of the tea. “It’s cursed, and has been for years. You’d do best to avoid it.”

Jason stared down at his plate. Cursed. He knew that well enough after yesterday. But why, and by who? The lord was the only person in the whole land who possessed magic, as far as Jason knew. He was known for being fickle and heavy-handed, far from a fair ruler, but why would he bother cursing a manor in the woods outside of an insignificant little village?

“Who were the Waynes?” he pressed, a question more likely to be answered than any of the others circling in his head.

“Someone very rich,” Leslie said dismissively. “It was a long time ago, Jason, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“There was a path leading there from Alfred’s cottage, that’s how I found it,” Jason said slowly, watching her for a reaction. Sure enough, at Alfred’s name, she paused just before taking a bite of her toast. “Do you think he’d know more about it?”

“Alfred? That old man that helped you when you hurt your knee?” she asked politely. “I suppose he might, although he would have told you already if it was something he wanted to share. And you’re not going out there anytime soon anyways, not on that leg.”

“I don’t need your permission,” Jason pointed out, trying to stay as calm as her, wrapping cool indifference around the embers of anger trying to kindle in his chest.

“Why does it even matter? It’s cursed and best left alone-” She stopped and looked at him, her dark eyes suddenly keen and anxious. “You went in.”

It wasn’t a question. Jason nodded anyways. 

For a moment he thought she was angry, searching for words and trying to wrangle her emotions. But then she looked at him again, and her expression was far too complicated to be something as simple as anger. “What do you remember?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” He’d hit his head, certainly- he didn’t remember when, and there were no sore spots or bruises now to indicate where he’d hit it, but how else to explain that crippling pain that had knocked him out?- but he didn’t think he had any memory gaps. “It was very cold inside, and there were people, almost like ghosts. Just a few at first, but then a whole party, and I. Left.” Got scared and ran like a child, but he would sooner swallow his tongue than admit to that.

“Just random people?” Leslie pressed, and when Jason frowned at her, she pursed her lips and looked away. She seemed almost disappointed, as though Jason’s answer had let her down somehow.

They were quiet for a long minute as they ate. Finally Leslie looked up from her plate, her face set like stone.

“You are correct in that I can’t stop you from going where you wish, and I won’t try,” she said. “All I ask is that you be careful.”

“I know I worked my knee too hard yesterday-” Jason began, but Leslie shook her head and cut him off with a sharp sweep of her hand.

“Not your knee, although yes, be gentle to it too, of course. I mean, the people in this village have forgotten that manor exists, and don’t want to be reminded of it. It makes them uneasy. If they hear you’ve gone inside it, I’m not sure how they will react.”

Jason looked at her, this old woman who was the closest thing he’d ever had to a mother, and knew she was lying to him. “All right,” he agreed easily- her advice was solid enough, even if her answers to his questions were doubtful.

“I told them you were out so late yesterday because you were looking for that deer you saw, so they should be sweet on you today, risking your life for the good of the village like that.” She stood up and swept up their dirty dishes, while Jason thought about how that was the second time in one conversation that she had distanced herself from the other people in the village, as though she was not one of them.

He looked past her and spotted her bag near the door. “You have patients today?”

“It is winter,” she said grimly, and he nodded. People sought her out faster in winter since they had more time and less chores, and minor illnesses and injuries could become lethal so easily.

“Stay in the village for the next few days,” she said when she was done cleaning up. She tried to phrase it as a question but her tone didn’t quite make it. She was too used to being obeyed, and had little experience with allowing other people their own opinions. “Let yourself heal up before you go chasing answers. And just.” She stopped and looked away, and Jason watched curiously as she underwent some internal debate. Finally she looked up again and said, “Just be careful, all right?”

He nodded, and she picked up her bag and left with a nod of farewell, all business now, emotion locked safely away. He watched the door close behind her and turned the new thoughts over in his head like a shiny new coin. There was a manor in the woods, and it was cursed, and Leslie knew something about it and would not tell him. He absolutely did not want to go back in there, so the only other option was asking Alfred, who had, however inadvertently, led him there in the first place.

He had brought the book he had borrowed from Alfred into the kitchen with him, and his hand rested on it now, idly tracing the cover with the embossed letters of the title. 

He fed another log into the fire to keep it burning bright and warm for him, and picked up the book, and did his best to escape the memories of the day before, at least for a little while.

* * *

The second day of enforced rest was worse than the first- he had read the book the day before and didn’t like it enough to reread it again immediately, Leslie was quietly avoiding him, and there was not much more to do in a house suited to the needs of two people who were rarely home. He grew tired of the restlessness and eventually left to wander through the village, chasing an idle thought of asking after busywork in the bakery so he could stay in the oven room.

He stopped on the main road, watching as the village guards worked at the town hall, scrubbing the building’s side with rough cloth to clean away the grime and hacking at the skeletal branches of bushes that had overgrown the path leading up to the hall. The hall’s doors stood open, and there were heavy thumping noises coming from inside.

“It’s His Lordship,” a voice said at Jason’s elbow, and he glanced over. The miller’s oldest daughter, the one Jason sold rabbits to, had stopped to watch as well. Her face was dour and bitter. She glanced at Jason, gauging his reaction before continuing. “It was when you weren’t here. They announced a few days ago that the lord was going to be doing the winter solstice pronouncement here.”

“What pronouncement?” Did the lord think the folks needed to be told winter was there? “And why here?”

“To rally our spirits in these bleak days, and remind us that the days get longer and warmer from here,” she recited, and while the sneer was not actively present, her tone implied it was there in spirit. “As for why here, I couldn’t say. He did it here every year at first, after he claimed this area. Don’t know why he’s decided this is a good year to pick it up again. We certainly can’t fete him appropriately.”

If the guards could hear her, they would take a hand to her, possibly even toss her into the cellar with the enforced door below the town hall that served as the village’s jail cell. But they were alone, and she had judged her audience well- Jason had no love for the distant tyrant that ruled their land.

“I don’t remember that,” Jason said quietly. How long ago had that been? She was only a handful of years older than him, and she spoke like she remembered it.

“Doctor Thompkins never attended, so it makes sense you didn’t either, you being her foundling and all,” the miller’s daughter said generously. She shook her head and turned away. “Come on, we’d best move on before they catch us looking and put us to work.”

It was a valid concern- his knee was no longer stiff but still protested too much use, and his shoulder was bruised with a rainbow of pain, and none of the guards would care about any of it. He let her guide him away, and she chattered about nothing of consequence as they went, telling him about how at least the pronouncement was an excuse to pull out her finest dress for once. He let the words wash over him, and looked back at the town hall once they were safely out of shouting range for the men working there.

The lord, coming here, to this tiny little village that should mean nothing to him now that it was secure in the palm of his hand.

Jason turned away and walked with the miller’s daughter and listened to her talk about dresses, and wondered.

* * *

That night, he dreamed.

It started as a tickle in the back of his skull, dream-pain, vague and imprecise, and left him shifting uncomfortably on his bed well after he had laid down. He wanted to toss and turn but didn’t dare, not with the cold just outside the covers, waiting to creep in. He stayed still instead, and closed his eyes and tried to trick his body into thinking it was sleeping, and then-

_glass like ice against skin, a book big and heavy in small hands, voices raised-_

_\- the party had begun already but he was hiding, cowering at the top of the stairs. the women here liked to pinch his cheeks and coo at him, the men liked to laugh big and hearty and clap him on the shoulder, they all made rude comments they thought he couldn’t understand._

_“do i have to,” he said to the person standing next to him, towering over him._

_“yes, master ---, i am afraid you must.”_

_he sighed and rose and came down the stairs-_

_voices yelling, snow under his feet and moonlight shining above_

_\- the women spoke above him, brushed fingers through his hair like he was a spoiled lapcat to be pet, watched him and whispered, don’t they have the same look, cast from the same mold, he’ll be a big man one day i can tell, do you think-? do you know-? who might be the mother?_

_he looked for relief and found no sanctuary in the foyer, but in the ballroom there was a familiar figure, dressed in blues and smiling and laughing and charming the circle of people clustered loosely around him, and he was not a friend but for tonight he was an ally. their gazes caught and he tipped his chin, indicating the garden out back, then said something that had the people around him laughing, and it was cover enough._

_outside was a maze, hedges over his head, crickets singing, nightjars cooing, and he slipped past the few people who had made it out here as well. he stood near the path into the hedge maze and considered disappearing, and claiming later that he had gotten lost._

_someone said his name-_

_glass like ice against skin, and a wolf’s lonely howl, and light like leashed sunshine burning his eyes and tearing the scream from his throat_

He gasped, awakened with a jolt, and fought hard against the suffocating weight of the covers until they pushed away and he could fall out of bed.

He staggered out of the room, into the main room, then from there outside into the predawn light. The sky was only just starting to lighten far to the east, the moon a waxy sickle low on the horizon, the air bitterly cold and cleansing after- whatever that had been.

The party. He had dreamed about the party from the manor. It had gotten into his head somehow, and now he was dreaming it like he had been there, instead of simply witnessing its ghost.

He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it, staring into the treeline a ways ahead of him. In the darkness he could swear there was something even darker, proper black against the mottled darkness that was shadows, watching him. He closed his eyes, counted to ten, looked again, and it was gone.

He should not have gone into that manor.

He went back inside soon enough, when he started losing feeling in his fingers. He did not sleep again that night.

* * *

The day he thought his knee could take it, Jason walked to Alfred’s cottage.

It was a necessity, whatever else his reasons- the snares and traps deeper in the woods were the more successful ones, and they had gone almost a week unchecked. Several had been triggered, and had blood smeared in the snow nearby, as the animal either chewed itself free or became easy prey to a passing predator. Several more had catches, and Jason came to Alfred’s cottage with a healthy string of rabbits over one shoulder.

The cottage was dark, the chimney still, the table outside abandoned. Jason was a day early for their usual meeting. He approached carefully nevertheless, keeping one eye on the windows to watch for movement.

He set the book he had borrowed on the table they had tea at, and hesitated a long moment, then untied one of the rabbits and set it on the table next to the book. A peace offering, a declaration, a refusal to acknowledge basic truths- he didn’t know what it was. A gesture, for sure. Hopefully Alfred would find it before the wolf did.

He lingered for a long moment, still watching the windows. Then he turned and walked away, and did not look back.

* * *

The wolf found him the next day.

He ventured north of the main road for once, instead of staying south of it- the manor was south of it, and Jason was content to give it a wide berth and purge its ghosts from his mind- and reaped the bounty. He flushed a flock of turkeys early in the afternoon, and spent a couple of hours herding them towards the snares he’d spent the morning setting up, and ended up snaring two lean toms he kept and a hen he released. He needed to get back in the habit of bringing his hunting bow out with him- he’d stopped bothering when the deer hadn’t returned last spring, since there was nothing left in the woods that would need such firepower, but turkeys were ornery and quick with biting beaks and slashing feet and slapping wings, and he’d rather take them from a distance.

He ate lunch as a reward, cleared snow off the trunk of a fallen tree and broke chunks off of the hard cheese and bread the baker’s wife had pressed into his hands that morning, and looked around to see what else might be nearby as he ate, and abruptly found himself staring into the blue eyes of the wolf, barely a dozen paces away and clearly just as startled to see him as he was it.

They stared at each other for a long moment before the wolf, caught mid-step, put its paw down and sniffed delicately at the air. It did not approach, but its vivid eyes fastened on the turkeys, and Jason hooked a foot over them and drew them closer to him.

“I should thank you for not eating me the other day, but I’m not _that_ grateful,” he said, and the wolf looked up at him at the sound of his voice.

Jason ate another bite of bread, still watching the wolf closely but no longer out of fear. It truly was a stunning animal, its fur so black it shone blue in the sunlight, its eyes the color of a summer sky.

“Is this your territory, then, north of the road? Is this why you and I have not crossed paths before?” Jason asked it. He had wondered- a wolf had to eat, after all, and there was barely enough prey in this forest to support such a beast. But then, he rarely went north of the road, not when the river kept most animals in the southern half of the forest.

The wolf dared a step closer to him, and Jason shifted his weight and rested his hand on the hilt of his knife. They considered each other for another moment, then the wolf’s ears suddenly perked up and its head snapped around, staring off into the distance. It spared him one last, measured look, then took off, darting nearly soundless through the underbrush, possibly after the turkeys Jason had discovered.

It was gone in a heartbeat, almost as if it was never even there, only its prints in the snow keeping Jason from doubting himself. He stared after it long after it was gone, and ate his lunch in silent contemplation.

* * *

He had gotten complacent, it turned out. One bad dream- not even necessarily _bad_ , just odd, in that he was remembering a memory that was not his- and then the ghosts of the manor seemed content to let him be.

He should have known better.

_a door slammed open, and there was yelling and pain and a light so bright-_

_the man had a face meant to smile, and friendly eyes, and he was warm as sun-soaked oak to the touch, but the woman- she moved like liquid, and commanded the room from the moment she walked in, and he would fight a lion bare-handed to win just one of her fierce smiles._

_they were surrounded by walls of books and broad windows and he was hurting, skin torn open at his knuckles, ears ringing with chastising words, and she was standing over him and put a hand to his chin to make him look up at her._

_“he is proud of you, as we all are,” she said, and emotion swelled fit to burst in his chest-_

_a wolf howled, and footsteps in the snow, and something slipping away like fine sand through grabbing fingers_

_\- they swung past in the dance, a well-made couple, she almost taller than him even in her flat sensible shoes. he was tucked into a corner, trying not to draw attention and trying not to hide, annoyed that his garden escape had been curtailed, and not even the music ending and her coming over to him could lift his mood._

_“you are no good for this,” she said, not pity, not derision, but understanding. “it took many years before he was comfortable at such gatherings, i don’t know what he was thinking.”_

_across the room, her dance partner was talking to another man, smiling and laughing, drawing him out onto the dance floor, his broad shoulders blocking his new partner’s face from their view even as he coaxed the man into putting his hands on his shoulder, his waist, and spun him into the first step of the next dance-_

_running and hiding, hands grabbing for him, voices yelling after him and he ran he ran he ran_

He jerked, and yanked the covers down, and stared at the ceiling above him. His heart was slamming in his chest and his breath was seizing up like he was still running, like he had never stopped. He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow and held his breath until he had to inhale again. It was late, he could see sunlight through the gaps in the coverings over the window. He usually rose with the sun, but the angle of the light said today he had slept until late morning.

Was this _normal_? When was it going to stop? Was he cursed now too, sharing the same ghosts as the manor he had trespassed into, or would it fade away?

Alfred might know- of all the people Jason knew, Alfred was most likely to have gone into the manor. If nothing else, he would be able to answer some questions about it.

Jason stayed in bed until his heart had settled and his breathing evened out, then got up. He had a long day ahead of him, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

He made it to Alfred’s cottage late, far later than he would ever have gone out there by choice- but he wasn’t willing to suffer another night of curse-dreams, and hopefully coming so close to nightfall would mean the old man would actually be home. And indeed, as he approached he spotted a figure sitting at the tea table, book in hand.

He was not careful on his approach, his footsteps loud and heavy in the snow, and the person at the table shifted and lifted their head but did not look up from the book and- really, it was Jason’s fault for not looking closer, for assuming the person sitting outside Alfred’s cottage would naturally be Alfred.

“Not that I have any room at all to complain, but do you have anything _not_ by this author? This is the third book by her to have the same plot, just with different characters.”

Jason skidded to a halt in the middle of the clearing and said numbly, stupidly, “You’re not Alfred.”

The book dropped, and the man at the table half-rose before stopping abruptly when he spotted Jason. “No,” he agreed, and his expression shifted from icy blankness to confusion. “Neither are you.”

“Who are you, then?” Jason asked, which he felt was a fair enough question.

For a moment the man’s face fell and he looked, strangely enough, desolate. “You don’t remember,” he said, not asking.

Jason studied him closely. The sun was gone, had set twenty minutes ago, but its light still bled over the horizon and lit up the clearing enough for the man to read the book without a candle. He looked familiar, but far more so _sounded_ familiar.

“You found me the other night,” Jason said slowly. “You were with Alfred- you ran to the village to get help.”

The man watched him for a long moment, his expression inscrutable. “I did,” he said finally, and smiled a smile that was blatantly false. “Richard Grayson. Most people call me Dick.”

“Do they?” Jason asked, the words rolling off his tongue without stopping by his brain for any permission whatsoever. He wanted to flush, to apologize, but Dick’s smile turned from false to challenge- waiting for Jason to try again, to do his best, daring him to come up with one that he’d never heard before- and Jason swallowed that urge. “Jason Todd,” he said, not an apology.

“Come sit, Jason Todd,” Dick said, and kicked out the chair opposite him at the table. “I don’t bite. Not at the moment, anyways.”

Jason had been approaching, but he hesitated at that, and came over cautiously when Dick only smiled wryly and shrugged. He didn’t sit, but stood behind the chair instead. “So who are you, exactly?”

“I’m- well.” Dick shook his head wryly. “There’s not really a good word for it, but I am the almost-son of the man who was Alfred’s almost-son. So he is my grandfather, I suppose.”

“Mmhm. And where is he now?”

Dick looked up at him, then picked up the book and took from its pages a small piece of paper that he had been using as a bookmark. “I know you have no reason to believe this is real, but it was on the door when I got here.”

Jason took the paper and read it, just a brief note that Alfred would be gone for several hours and not to worry if he wasn’t back when Dick arrived. It certainly looked like Alfred’s handwriting, and- Dick had been there, the night after Jason went into the manor, and Alfred had worried after his safety- and it was enough. Dick took advantage of the moment to rise and duck into the cottage for a moment, and returned with a lit candle in a holder that he set on the table between them. 

“I haven’t seen you around before,” Jason said as he pulled out the chair and sat down. “Are you just visiting?”

“I stop by when I have time, which isn’t often. Never during the day, unfortunately.” He looked at Jason, and with the candle between them and the last of the daylight bled off the horizon, his blue eyes were black in the darkness. “What are you doing out here so late, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I needed to talk to Alfred about something,” Jason said without even stopping to think about the lie. “There’s a wolf in these woods, I didn’t get the chance to tell him about it the last time we met.”

“A wolf,” Dick echoed, but Jason wasn’t listening. He picked up the book Dick had discarded so casually and held it up to better see the title in the light. It was the book Jason had read himself and returned only the day before.

“This author is- you think these books all have the same plot?” he demanded, and Dick leaned back in his seat and blinked at him. For a moment Jason considered letting it go- Alfred did not read them, Leslie had no time, no one else had any interest, it didn’t matter in the end. It was only an escape.

“Morally dubious man falls in love with headstrong free-spirited young woman and strives to better himself in order to be worthy of her love,” Dick said, folding his arms across his chest and arching a brow in obvious challenge. “I’ve read three of her books, and you can’t tell me which one I just described.”

“If you strip all stories down to their barest bones, then they all sound similar enough that there’s no point in telling any of them but one,” Jason argued.

“I’m not saying _that_ ,” Dick said. “Just in this particular case, with this one author and her one love story that she retold for, what, seven books?”

“Eight,” Jason corrected. “And it’s not a love story, that’s part of it but it’s not about that- here. Come here.” And he rose, and took the book in one hand and the candle in the other, and headed into the cottage and then into the bedroom. Dick followed him, and stood waiting with an expectant expression, and Jason dropped the first book in his hands to pull out another one from the shelf. “This, and this,” and he dropped the second book on top of the first, “were written fifteen years apart. The author changed as a person between them- she was young and married when she wrote this one, and widowed for that one, and the stories changed as she did. Read both of them, stop looking at just the romance angle, and tell me again they’re the same story.”

Dick stood there for a long moment, books in hand, and looked at Jason silently. It honestly felt like the first time he’d even bothered to look, like he had figured he knew everything there was to know already and was now reevaluating.

“I suppose things might change in fifteen years,” he agreed. “But like I said, I don’t have much free time. It might take me a while.”

“You were reading that one already,” Jason said, indicating the first book.

“Oh, that was just killing time until.” Dick stopped mid-sentence, eyes on the books in his hands, except for the briefest of glances to the window. Every line in his body shifted at that, tired and resigned, and he set the books aside on the unused bed. “You should go now. Alfred won’t be home anytime soon, and you shouldn’t be walking in this forest at night. Not with a wolf out there.”

He had a point- the wolf might have tolerated Jason on its turf in the light of day, but nighttime favored it, and he wouldn’t care to meet it now. Jason nodded and maneuvered past Dick out of the bedroom.

“Hang on,” Dick said suddenly, and took the candle back for a moment. When he came out into the main room, he had another book in hand, which he offered to Jason. “Have you read this one yet?”

Jason took the book and looked at its cover. Another one by the same author. “Not yet. I was reading them in order.”

“Well, there you go. You read yours, I’ll read mine, you can come back sometime and we’ll compare notes.”

“All right,” Jason agreed, feeling some of the tension ease at the words.

Dick followed him back outside and stood on the stoop with a sigh, his eyes on the trees like he thought if he looked hard enough, he would be able to see the sky beyond. “Take the main road back, not your hunting trails, we don’t need a repeat of last time,” he said. “And get home safe.”

They were orders dressed in the polite tones of a request, but Jason let it be, didn’t bristle and snap back for once. “I’ll see you soon, then,” he said, careful not to ask.

Dick smiled and nodded and waved goodbye, and Jason turned and walked away without looking back.

It occurred to him only when he was halfway home that from the moment he laid eyes on Dick, he hadn’t thought about the manor or the curse-dreams once.

* * *

“You’re back late.”

Jason lifted his head, looked around the edge of his hood at the guard at his post. It was a face Jason vaguely recognized, one of the newer ones sent ahead of the lord to make sure there were no issues. He looked cold and tired and cranky enough to start something over nothing with the next person to cross his path.

“Out hunting,” he said, picking his words with care and biting off further explanation, which could be interpreted as condescending. Of course the man knew there were animals that only came out at dusk, he didn’t need that spelled out for him, did Jason think him stupid?

“Failing to hunt,” the guard grunted. There was a lit torch beside him, and he had been standing in its circle both for warmth and light, but he stepped forward to squint at Jason standing in the darkness on the road. “You caught nothing?”

“It’s winter,” Jason said, and again did not add the obvious statement.

“What’s that?” the guard asked, pointing suspiciously at Jason’s coat.

The man was armed and armored, but Jason thought he could probably have him unconscious before he even knew what hit him- a blow to the chin to snap his head up, a rabbit punch to the neck to render him breathless, snatch his helmet off as he fought to breathe and smash his head into the wooden post holding the torch. He might not even remember who attacked him afterwards. Jason allowed himself a second or two to imagine it- a brief, controlled burst of violence against these men who thought themselves so much better than him- then stepped closer to the light and fumbled for the buttons on his coat.

He had tucked the book Dick had given him into an inner pocket over his ribs, and it pulled the coat noticeably out of shape. He took the book out and offered it up for inspection, standing loose and prepared to make a grab if the guard decided to throw the book into the filthy muddy snow on the road. The guard grabbed it roughly and looked it over, front and back, then flipped it open and flipped through the pages after a long hesitation on the very first page. Then he scoffed and, thankfully, handed it back.

“You might get more hunting done if you were looking for animals instead of at that,” he said with a sneer. 

Jason’s hand on his far side had curled into a fist and pressed tight against his thigh. He nodded silently, biting his tongue- no sense in antagonizing the man. Come spring, maybe, when he could survive off the land and live away from the village for weeks at a time. Not now.

The guard scoffed again and stepped back into his fragile sphere of light. “Go on, then,” he said, bored and annoyed that his potential entertainment had gone flat on him, and Jason went.

He ducked around behind the baker’s house after checking to be sure there was no one watching, no one even around to look. The heat from the ovens seeped through the stone wall of the building during peak baking hours, and Jason leaned against it to soak its residual warmth in along his back. He unlatched the wooden shutter over the window and swung it open, letting the reddish light of the oven fires- nearly embers now but not burnt out, they were never allowed to completely burn out- spill into the night. Then he held the book up to the light and opened it, intending to flip through the pages but stopping on the very first one.

_Property of the Wayne Library_ , written in Alfred’s neat handwriting on the title page, the same title page that had been so carefully removed from every other book before they were lent to Jason. Clearly Dick had not known to perform that minor surgery before handing the book over.

Jason stared at the words for a minute before tucking the book back away into his coat pocket and closing the shutter, and he stayed there until the stone behind him was cold with the air around it. Then he pushed away and headed for home.

With any luck, he wouldn’t dream that night. He had things to do come morning.

* * *

“So what do you know about the Wayne Manor?”

Alfred had come into the clearing around his cottage with a burlap-wrapped package under one arm and had been fussing with the twine tied around it. He stopped and looked at Jason, sitting at the tea table.

“Hello, Jason,” he greeted calmly. Possibly he had been waiting for this confrontation from the beginning, probably since the day Jason went into the manor, almost certainly since yesterday. “Have you been here long?”

“No,” Jason admitted. “But it’s fine if I am, I don’t have anything more pressing.”

“You’ll freeze to death,” Alfred warned as he walked over to the door of the cottage.

“Would you let me?” Jason asked, and Alfred looked at him and sighed. He pushed the door open and gestured, and Jason rose and went inside.

They were silent as Alfred fussed with stoking the fire and filling the kettle. His package sat on the kitchen table, and Jason shamelessly pulled at the twine and unwrapped the burlap. More burlap inside, and waxed paper, all to hold tea, from the smell of it.

“Wayne Manor,” Alfred said as he set two teacups onto the table, ready to be filled. “I used to work there, as you might have discerned.”

Apparently that was all the more answer he was going to get, as Alfred took the package and set to unpacking it into the cabinet. Jason moved over to stand near him, forcing eye contact through proximity. “What happened?”

“To the manor?”

“The manor, the Waynes, the curse- anything. Why is there a big cursed manor in the middle of the woods, and why haven’t you told me about it?”

Alfred dropped the tea tin he was filling and turned on Jason, his tone cool and clipped and utterly polite. “I was the butler at Wayne Manor many years ago. I worked for Thomas and Martha Wayne and, after their deaths, their son Bruce. I cannot tell you what happened on the night the manor was cursed because I myself do not understand it. I was away visiting a friend, and when I came back.” He stopped, and looked away, and returned to sorting his tea.

Jason eased off a few steps, surprised by the show of almost-emotion. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, when he judged enough time had passed for Alfred to have wrangled the worst of it.

“I know you went into the manor,” Alfred said, and his tone was closer to normal, smooth and controlled but no longer cold. “Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

“You’ve been inside,” Jason said.

“Yes. But it seems to react differently to different people.”

Jason took a steadying breath. “Ghosts. Memories, maybe. It was like the building itself was remembering, and I was in the middle of it.”

Alfred made a thoughtful noise and closed the cabinet door. “Interesting.”

“But _why_?” Jason pressed. “Why was Wayne Manor cursed? And what happened to Wayne himself?” And who did it, he almost asked, but bit that question back at the last moment. He had, after all, already answered it himself- there was only one person with magic in the whole land, only one person who would be able to levy such a curse.

“The Waynes controlled this area,” Alfred said, clearly hearing the unspoken question nonetheless. “And now they don’t. And Master Bruce-” His hands were shaking, and he wrapped them together to hide it, and Jason looked away and said nothing. “He is beyond my ability to help.”

Jason waited, not knowing how to respond to that, while Alfred visibly shored up the walls that had been crumbling.

“It is what it is, I’m afraid,” he said. “The key to lifting the curse has long been lost, and as much as I hope for its return, I do fear the cost of it.” He patted Jason on the arm, the first touch between them since Jason’s leg had healed enough that he no longer needed support to move around.

“So did Dick work at the manor with you?” That was how it was done, right? The son, or grandson in this case, inherited the family served by his predecessors.

“Richard?” Alfred looked briefly confused by the question. “No, he did not work at the manor.”

Jason looked away with a nod. It had been needling at him since the day before, what Dick Grayson with his pretty face and his easy smile and his ready answers might have said, if Jason had but asked.

“So you did meet him yesterday then,” Alfred continued. “I had wondered.”

“He didn’t tell you?” Jason asked in surprise.

“I’m afraid M- Richard’s time with me is very limited, and I missed him last night.” Alfred busied himself with the tea, although it was doubtful the water was ready yet.

“He’s, uh.” Jason said it to fill in the silence, and left it more awkward than he found it with a sentence only just begun and no idea on how to finish it.

Alfred paused and looked at him. “Ah,” he said, knowingly, and to Jason’s embarrassment he felt heat flood his face.

“No, I didn’t mean that, I meant he’s-” what? Interesting? Extremely incorrect in his literary opinions? “New. I haven’t seen him before, or even heard you mention him.”

“You never asked,” Alfred said easily, and that was true enough- Jason had known so little about Alfred’s life not because Alfred had put in any effort to keep it all a secret, but because Jason had never bothered to wonder. 

“I stayed with you for two weeks after I hurt my knee, and he never came around,” Jason pointed out.

“That was in spring. He stays much closer to home in winter.” Alfred handed one filled mug to Jason and wrapped his hands around the other to soak in its warmth. “I am the only family he has left. We’re both rather protective of each other.”

The man Jason had met the previous day had made jokes about biting, and poked at Jason over something he knew little about just to watch how he reacted, and absolutely did not need protecting. But then, Jason wasn’t looking at it through the eyes of a somewhat-grandfather. He accepted that answer and took a sip of tea. Not Alfred’s best, but it served admirably as a distraction.

“I keep dreaming about the manor’s ghosts,” he said finally, and Alfred looked at him. “How do I make it stop?”

“I don’t know,” Alfred admitted quietly.

Would going back to the manor help or make it worse? Jason didn’t know, and he didn’t like it when he didn’t know things. He’d give it another few days, a week, see if it was getting better. Go from there.

He took a too-large sip of tea, feeling it scald his throat and settle warmly into his bones. “I should be getting back,” he said. “I don’t want to be out too late, I haven’t been sleeping well.”

Alfred took the mug back when Jason held it out to him, and there was something strange in his eyes when he looked up. “Take care of yourself, Jason,” he ordered, and it felt very different to the normal _be careful_ that he would give before Jason began the long walk home.

“I will,” Jason said, and Alfred nodded and turned away as Jason headed out.

He circled the cottage and stood there for a long moment, looking between the two paths- the manor to his left, home to his right. There was no real contest. He turned right after one last look to his left.

Some other day.

* * *

It was hard to fall asleep when he spent the entire time braced for what dreams might come.

Leslie was snoring softly from her bed on the other side of the room, and had been for an hour, and Jason lay in the darkness and listened to her. When he closed his eyes, he saw the manor’s ghosts, both the ones the manor had shown him and the ones he had dreamt. He knew his dreams were more than just reframed ghosts, more than just what he had seen that day from a different angle- he was seeing _more_ , somehow, as though he had been there.

He would have known if he had ever been in that manor. He would have remembered something like that. But there was nothing of the sort when he closed his eyes and cast his mind back. Just the village, the forest, Leslie looking after him in this little house. Just this life, stretching far behind him, like a road fading into the haze of distance just below the horizon.

He felt like a vast puzzle was being pieced together around him, and he could not see its shape or determine its pattern. He felt like a bottomless glass that someone was pouring water into, and he retained none of it. His head was hurting and it annoyed him. It felt so much like there was something there if only he could push past the pain-

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, and Jason sat bolt upright and stared at the window. It was not close to the village, but it was close enough that the farmers would have something to say about it in the morning, a demand that Jason do something about it.

No voice answered it, of course. If there had once been a pack in those woods, they had moved on when the deer did. The sound was almost lonely, mournful.

Jason laid back down, tucking the covers back around himself. He held still, all but held his breath, listening between Leslie’s snores for another howl, his mind emptied of all thoughts but the wolf.

He fell asleep listening, and did not dream.

* * *

“You’re out late.”

It was fortunate that the speaker had the sense to keep his distance- Jason had his hunting knife out and ready to swing out as he turned neatly on his heel to face the source of the voice.

Dick, leaning against a tree well out of slicing range, arms wrapped around himself and one brow raised at the knife. Jason breathed out the tension and forced himself to relax.

“Not a smart habit, sneaking up on people in the woods like that,” he said as he slid the knife back into its sheath. “And you’re always out late.”

“Yes, but I know what _I’m_ doing out here. You’re the question.” He stepped away from the tree and came over, now that Jason knew he was there and wasn’t demonstrating interest in hurting him. He was wearing only a light jacket over a mid-weight shirt, Jason noticed, and shivering for it. 

Jason grunted, annoyed, and shrugged his coat off. His shirt underneath was heavy knitted wool, with another shirt under that, and he was likely still warmer as is than Dick would be with the coat on.

“Are you trying to freeze to death?” he asked irritably as he stepped closer and swung the coat around Dick’s shoulders without his permission.

“Sorry,” Dick said, shifting his shoulders to settle the coat more comfortably. “Normally I have a nice heavy coat, I just seem to have misplaced it at the moment.” He gave the same wry smile as he had when he was promising he didn’t bite.

“So what are you doing out here?” Jason asked. He was aware that they were still standing very close, neither of them seeming inclined to move away. It was warmer that way, one could argue, and the sun was newly set and the forest dark and gloomy, so they needed to stand close to properly see one another.

Dick was distracted for a moment, tweaking at the fabric of the hood, studying the color. He shot Jason a quick glance, just the slightest hint of self-aware shame. “Looking for you, actually. I didn’t know if you would be willing to walk out to Alfred’s cottage two days in a row, and it seemed rude to presume.” He paused, then released the hood and smiled, sharp and just a little bit toothy. “Also Alfred is a little overprotective, so I thought it best to avoid his chaperoning, if at all possible.”

“He said you were the only family either of you have, it’s understandable he’d be protective of you,” Jason said slowly, wary of the conversational tack and preparing to change it. He was not interested in being asked to choose a side. He stepped away, lingering just long enough to let Dick settle in beside him, and started walking, heading towards Alfred’s cottage to deliver the errant son.

“Not just me,” Dick said with a strange expression, and- it was flattering, really, and perhaps a bit stupid, how it warmed something in Jason to hear that someone cared enough about him to want to protect him. Then Dick waved a hand as if to wipe it all away. “I’m out here because you’re the most interesting thing to happen to me in a dozen years.”

“I’m interesting?” That was- not what Jason had been expecting. No one in the village would have described him as _interesting_ , and it was jarring to hear it from someone like Dick. Had they not met after Jason had found the manor, he could have easily returned the sentiment.

“I live a tragically boring life.” Dick shrugged.

“Do you? I thought you were quite busy.” Jason couldn’t spare the attention to watch the other man too closely, not since he was leading the way along the wandering and overgrown trail through the woods, but he thought he caught the tail end of a grimace when he glanced back.

“There is a difference between _busy_ and _interesting_ , unfortunately,” Dick said. “I spend my days playing the fox.”

Jason paused at that and glanced back again, and was greeted with a look of expectation. He was waiting for the obvious question, and had a perfect answer prepared, and- it would not be true, or would not be the whole truth, or would be intentionally misleading. Jason had stumbled upon the border walls of another secret, and this time, there would be no unlocked gate to slip through.

He turned away again. “I’ve lived in that village for as long as I can remember. It doesn’t get less interesting than that.”

“As long as you can remember,” Dick echoed. “And how long is that?”

“All my life,” Jason said, feeling the annoyance creeping up.

“All of it? You’ve never once left that village, these woods? This is all you can remember?”

Jason hesitated at that, pausing in his step to give Dick a closer look. That was the fourth time in recent days that someone had, directly or inadvertently, called his memories into question. He gave it more of an honest effort that time, staring down that long road fading into the distance, seeing how far down it his mind could reach. The miller’s daughter could speak of things in her childhood, could remember actually being a child. Jason reached for that, for being small in a big world. The harder he reached, the further the horizon pulled away, like a mountain in the distance, ever retreating even as the viewer approached it-

How did he know how mountains behaved? He had never seen one, had only seen them in the paintings hung on the walls of the town hall. Except he had- his memory, provided a single detail to focus on instead of a vague idea, produced something foggy and poorly defined but _there_ \- he had seen a mountain, had seen a bay that fed into the ocean, had seen- had seen-

_gates open wide onto a well-kept garden, hedges framing meandering paths and a rose bush fighting for dominance in the corner, a strong heavy hand on his shoulder and a voice deep as the ocean tide rumbling in his ear, welcoming him to his new home-_

“-son,” a voice said, vague and distant and only just piercing through the crashing pain in his skull. He was warm, he was kneeling, he had strong hands on his shoulders. “Jason, can you hear me? Please talk to me, if I broke you Alfred’s going to kill me, he very specifically warned me against this. Jason?”

“I can hear you,” Jason said, once he had wrangled his heavy tongue into speaking.

“That’s good. Will you open your eyes for me?” He did not sound panicked, but firm and controlled, like the panic would come later when it was less inconvenient. Jason responded to the tone, and opened his eyes as best he could, and found no light waiting to sear through him- the sun was long set and the moon had yet to rise. Just Dick, worried but not scared, kneeling by him and holding him upright with hands spread across the breadth of Jason’s shoulders and thumbs against his neck to keep his head up.

“That’s good,” Dick said again, and smiled, his teeth bright in the gloom. Jason thought, briefly, insanely, of the wolf’s white teeth. His thumbs stroked up and down Jason’s neck, following the lines of his carotids, shockingly intimate. “Tell me about that book you’ve been reading, the one I gave you.”

“Why.” It was kneejerk defiance, an automatic push back against a command.

“Because it will help ground you, and because I want to know.”

It seemed reasonable, and no one had ever asked him about books before. So he did. He told Dick about how the heroine for this story was the irresponsible, flighty youngest sister, a break from the author’s tradition of writing older sisters, since she had raised a pack of daughters and had had an adult’s perspective on how youngest sisters behaved. He talked about how the merchant’s daughter was doomed to a loveless marriage, because her father wanted her to marry up and bring him and his business up with her, and all the local lords were selfish dullards. He spoke about the stable boy that both young women seemed keen on, and how he only had eyes for the maltreated horse of the lord he worked for, and if the story didn’t include him stealing that horse and fleeing into the countryside, then why even put the horse in the book at all? And Dick listened, and made the appropriate thoughtful noises,and by the time he was done the pain had retreated enough for Jason to string two coherent thoughts together and actually observe his surroundings.

They were kneeling together in the snow, he and Dick. Dick’s hands had moved to a more respectful hold on his upper arms, and he had draped Jason’s coat back around his shoulders, leaving Dick shivering in the cold.

“Are you all right?” he asked, clearly seeing that Jason was aware again.

“Yes,” Jason said. “I- the pain’s gone, now.”

“Pain?” Dick echoed, sharp and concerned.

“It’s nothing.” Had Alfred told Dick that Jason had trespassed into the manor? Would Dick even care? Best not to admit to it, if possible. “What were we talking about?” He remembered- a mountain? And Dick had called him interesting. And after that, pain, as piercing as the night he found the manor.

Dick stared at him for a long moment before his expression melted into a tired smile. “We were comparing how boring our lives were,” he said, releasing Jason’s arms and sitting back on his heels to give him space.

“I think you’re winning,” Jason said, one hand pressed against his temple to soothe the crashing echoes of the pain. It felt like something liquid in his brain, sloshing around and splashing over everything. He groped for a handhold and Dick rose to his feet, far more graceful than a cold man kneeling in the snow had any business being, and helped Jason up as well.

“Can you walk?” he asked, looking away, peering at the sky through the bare branches above them. “I don’t have much time, I won’t be able to help you.”

“I’m fine,” Jason says, and puts word to action, shaking Dick’s supporting hold off and taking a few paces to demonstrate his soundness, surer of himself with each step.

“You should head back to the village, it’s closer than Alfred’s cottage, and you can take the main road.” Dick couched it carefully in a suggestive tone, dropping in the right words, but it was another order. Jason, sore and spiky with how this had gone, wanted to bristle like an angry cat and push back.

“I’m not leaving you to freeze to death,” he said, already reaching for his coat- he didn’t care what Dick did all day and most of the night that kept him so busy and so bored, the man was already shivering violently and would be dangerously sick by the time he made it to wherever he was going, if he made it at all.

Dick took a large step back, well out of reach. “I know you have no reason to,” he said. “But I need you to trust me, Jason. I will be fine. You can come back out tomorrow to check up on me if you would like, but for now, you need to look after yourself.”

Jason wanted very dearly to argue. But- the more he thought about it, the more he cast his mind back, he realized he had never seen Dick dressed appropriately for the weather. He clearly felt the cold just like anyone else, he simply seemed to expect to not feel it for long, as though the cold didn’t touch him when he was doing- whatever he did with his time.

And he was leaving anyways, another two steps away and still retreating, and Jason sighed. He would make it back to the village easily enough, but his head felt like an egg balanced in a spoon, and he did not think it would tolerate chasing or roughhousing.

“Tomorrow then,” he said. “And if you’ve frozen yourself to the ground in your foolishness, I will laugh at you.”

Dick laughed, a glorious sound. “I believe you,” he said, and looked at the sky again. “I have to run. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jason barely had the time to nod an acknowledgement before Dick was gone, ducked away into the trees behind him and all but running, from the sounds of it. He stood in the dark and listened until he could hear nothing more- which took surprisingly little time, Dick apparently quite light on his feet- then turned and started walking. The main road was a good idea in his current condition, although Jason would sooner bite his tongue off than admit it to Dick, so he headed that way after putting his coat on properly.

He was almost in sight of the road when a low, long noise pierced the near-silence around him. The wolf, its voice quite close and-

Exactly the direction Dick had gone.

Jason spun on his heel and stared into the trees, breath caught behind his teeth and heart thundering inconveniently oud in his ears. No footsteps, no screams, no paws padding. Just that one howl, ringing in the quiet.

He looked behind him, towards the road he could almost see, then turned back and pushed forward, not running but trotting, heading deeper into the forest, towards the wolf. Just to look around, just to see, so he would be able to sleep that night. He didn’t actually expect to find anything, he told himself.

And he didn’t, and he turned back to the road eventually, and promised himself- tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

Cutting in a straight line through the forest, through the village, through the farmlands beyond, the main road was wide enough for two carriages side-by-side and saw just enough traffic to keep it clear of plant growth. Once upon a time- possibly during the Wayne Manor’s height of power- an attempt had been made to pave it, and the parts that got the worst during spring floods and winter slogs had been patched with stretches of cobblestones. For the most part, however, it was just a glorified mudtrail.

Jason went out of his way to follow it home. The road offered him the false sense of safety of being human-made and therefore being a small strip of civilization in the wild. It did not stop the deer from walking along it when they had been here, the rabbits and quail from darting across it, and it would not stop the wolf from attacking him on it, but it made him feel better.

He had been walking along it for an hour, head down and hood up, eyes flicking frequently to the tree line on either side of him, when he heard hard, blowing breaths coming up from behind him. Not the wolf- it sounded like two animals moving together, and underneath it a rattle, and- hoofbeats?

He turned and looked, then darted to one side of the road, and the carriage rolled past him, the driver only just slowing enough to let him move. It was a blur of deep blue and gold, the horses out front probably pure white before they had spent their journey kicking mud and dirty snow onto their legs and bellies and painting themselves a dingy brown, the driver on the front seat and the footman clinging to the rear both done up in fancy livery that flashed moonlight off of polished brass buttons.

Jason watched it go by, watched as it pulled ahead, watched as the footman suddenly ducked down to talk through the window that had been sheltered by his own body, then stood up straight and called something at the driver. The carriage slowed, clattering to a halt, the horses dancing impatiently in their traces and the footman and driver both turning to stare behind them.

“Well, come on, then,” the footman called, and Jason ducked his head to hide his smile and kept normal pace until he was at the carriage. His search for Dick had yielded nothing, not even footprints he could track in the old grimy snow, and he was in a sour mood for it. Nothing to be done about it but come back the next day, as they had agreed, and vent some of that frustration by being an annoyance to whatever this was.

“You need something?” he asked, glancing back and forth between the two men, then peering curiously at the drawn curtains in the carriage window.

“Are you from the village?” a voice asked, and Jason looked at the window again. The passenger was speaking to him.

The footman gestured impatiently, leaning around the carriage and safely out of the passenger’s view. Jason glanced at him, then the driver. “Yes,” he said, wary- he knew carriages sometimes traveled the road, but he had never actually seen one, only the carts used by traveling merchants.

There was a single word from the passenger, and Jason backed off quickly as the footman dropped to the ground and came quickly up to the carriage. He reached under the carriage’s belly and folded down a footboard, locking it into place with a loud _click_ , then opening the door and giving a bow.

“Would you care for a ride home?” the passenger asked. It was definitely a man, his voice smooth and rich and cultured with an accent unlike Alfred’s, but the man himself was sitting back far enough in the seat that Jason could not see him from outside the carriage.

There was something wrong here, Jason thought to himself, in that single frozen moment. The forest had gone even quieter behind him, the moonlight shone almost like sunlight even though the moon was barely a sliver in the sky, and the shadows around the carriage seemed to have grown darker and more solid. If he touched a shadow, it would spring back, or perhaps his hand would sink into it like milk.

He should not have taken the main road, he knew that now. But he had, and something told him he could not safely refuse the offer. So he stepped forward, and let the footman take his hand and help him up the footboard and into the carriage, and settled into the cushioned seat opposite the other passenger as the door latched shut behind him.

There was light coming from somewhere, a pale silvery light like the man had captured a handful of moonlight. Jason glanced around briefly, then focused on the other man.

“Lord Luthor, I take it,” he said, carefully respectful, and the man smiled.

He was a handsome enough man, Jason supposed, with stern dark eyes that glittered in the stolen moonlight and a long nose and a firm jawline. He wore heavy velvet and soft-spun wool, a heavy robe over his clothes and a hood pushed back just far enough for Jason to see his face. He was wearing enough wealth to feed the village for all of Jason’s life- rubies set in gold rings, black stones on a silver chain around his neck and, incongruous to everything else about him, a rough-faced stone pendant on a leather thong, the stone carved on one half like a stylized sun and a crescent moon on the other. Jason folded his hands together and kept them on his lap.

The driver called something, and the carriage lurched into motion again. Jason swayed awkwardly on the seat, trying to touch as little as possible.

“So what is your name, boy?” Luthor asked, and Jason took a moment to offer a silent apology to Dick, who gave out orders too freely but at least did so with respect and not condescension.

“Jason Thompkins,” he said instantly, unthinkingly. It was close enough, and Leslie would forgive him, and half of the village called him _the Thompkins boy_ anyways.

“What are you doing in the forest in the middle of the night, Jason?” Luthor asked, politely. His attention had wandered already, his head leaned back against the cushion behind it and his gaze on the window. The curtain had pulled away in the corner, allowing him a sliver of a view of the outside, which answered the question of how he had spotted Jason.

“Hunting,” Jason said, and when Luthor glanced at him, he shrugged. “Deer come out more at night.”

“As do wolves,” Luthor said.

There was something pointed in his voice, something watchful in his gaze, like he was expecting Jason to react to that. Jason shrugged again and shook his head.

“Been a year at least since I’ve seen any signs of a wolf in these parts, my lord,” he said, tacking the honorific on at the end, just in case. Luthor seemed the sort of man who would mark its absence. He thought about commenting on his red hood, the superstition that it kept the wolves away, but bit the urge back. The guards at the village gates may think so little of him as to believe that, but Luthor seemed sharper than that. Jason was probably already pressing his luck with the dumb act.

“None whatsoever?” Luthor asked. “Not even in the deepest parts of the forest?”

It was cold in the carriage, blocking out the wind from outside hadn’t changed that. It grew colder with the question. Jason tempered his breathing, keeping himself as steady and unchanged as he knew how. The bad light would help in that regard, washing out any paling of his face.

The manor. Luthor was asking if Jason knew about the manor. Just like that, any lingering doubts Jason may have had about the source of the manor’s curse dried up and blew away.

“Don’t usually go out that far, sir,” he said. “I only took the road tonight because I followed some turkey tracks out farther than I like to go.”

Luthor tilted his head and raised his brows. “And yet, no turkeys.”

He should have taken the trails home. Every breath he took felt like it was scraping past a knife pressed ever so lightly against his throat. “No, sir. Been having bad luck all winter long.”

Luthor stared at him, his eyes black pits in the frail light. Finally he looked out the window again, and Jason could not say if he had successfully bluffed his way through that or if Luthor was simply biding his time.

“It will be over soon, boy, don’t worry. The worst of it is almost behind us,” he said, and it was not the reassurance he likely meant it as.

“Yes, sir,” Jason agreed, and sat as still and quiet as he could for the rest of the ride, and wondered.

* * *

The driver stopped the carriage on the main road in the village, rousing the shop owners as with the noise of it as he called to the horses. Jason was shifting and impatient, keen to escape, but Luthor seemed content to stay in the carriage and wait.

“You will be coming to the pronouncement, won’t you,” he said to Jason, and it was not a question, for all that it was worded like one.

“Yes, sir,” Jason said. He wouldn’t dare miss it now.

Something rattled outside the carriage, and then the door yanked open to the captain of the village guards. He was already talking, but stopped mid-word when he saw Jason.

“My lord?” he asked in a strangled tone, glancing over at Luthor.

“Go on,” Luthor ordered Jason, clearly done with him. Jason gratefully slid along the bench and stood awkwardly, stooped over in the cramped carriage, and dropped out to the ground once the guard moved aside. He ducked away, head down and shoulders up, as though hiding his face would disguise him from the baker peering out the window at the commotion, his gossipy wife close behind him. What would they think of him now, he wondered.

He had just ducked behind the bakery, into the night-darkness and the safety it promised, when someone settled in beside him and took his forearm in a surprisingly tight hold.

“Come on,” Leslie ordered, steering him along the path towards the house, as if Jason needed guidance. He followed her willingly down the path and into their house, and remained in the entry room where she deposited him when she ducked away back outside, looking around as though expecting to find people spying on them from the trees. When she came back inside, she closed the door and looked at Jason.

“You rode in with Luthor?” she asked, and barely waited for his nod. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing,” Jason said.

“What did he talk about? Did he ask you about anything suspicious in the woods?” She moved away from the door as she spoke, lowering her voice and glancing at the windows. She genuinely did think someone might be listening in, Jason realized.

He tempered his volume in return. “He asked about the manor, in a way. I told him I never go that deep into the forest.”

“Anything else?” She paced into the kitchen, all agitated energy, shuffling the cups on the washboard with short jerky motions. Jason followed her again, came over so he was standing near her.

“What, like did he ask about Dick Grayson?” he asked, and Leslie went very still and looked up at him, waiting. “No. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t speak unless spoken to.”

Leslie blew out a breath in relief, the vibrating anger she had carried in her seeming to abandon her all at once and leaving her smaller than ever. “Good,” she said. “If you had breathed a word of Dick’s existence to Luthor, then Dick would be dead very soon. The only thing protecting him right now is that Luthor thinks he is long gone from here.”

_I spend my days playing the fox_ , Dick’s voice said in Jason’s memory, and Jason wondered if Leslie knew that, if Luthor wasn’t aware of Dick’s presence nearby after all.

“So Luthor did curse the manor,” he said, and Leslie snorted. “Why?”

“Bruce Wayne had something he wanted,” she said. “And actually, no, Luthor did _not_ curse the manor. He would have burned it to ash, not cursed it. The curse is protecting the manor from him, not a product of his attack on it.”

Then that meant- “Bruce Wayne had magic,” Jason said, extrapolating and connecting, and Leslie looked at him with a grim smile.

“Oh yes,” she agreed.

“Then why didn’t he use it to protect himself from Luthor?” And what did Dick have to do with any of it? Why would Luthor bother hunting him? Alfred had mentioned a key to unlocking the manor’s curse, did Dick have it or know where it was?

“I don’t know, Jason, I wasn’t there that night,” Leslie said tiredly.

Jason nodded and turned away, then paused and shifted back. Leslie continued her busywork and glanced over at him questioningly after a few moments.

“How old am I?” he asked.

“What? Twenty-five. Did Luthor ask-?”

“No,” Jason cut in gently. “I’m asking because I can’t remember. And it seems strange, doesn’t it, a twenty-five year old man who can’t remember his childhood. It wasn’t long enough ago to be completely gone, and yet.” He shrugged.

Leslie set down the cup she’d been moving pointlessly from one spot to another and turned to face him properly. “Well, when we found you, you were barely able to remember your name. No mystery there.”

That one landed like a sucker punch, cratering him, folding him inward as he struggled to breathe around it. “When you what?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“Found you,” Leslie repeated with a frown. “Twelve winters ago. You were wandering in the forest, not far from here. Do you not remember that?”

“No,” Jason said, his voice still mostly absent. He tried to remember, and couldn’t. The haze of distance in his memory had grown, consuming not only whatever had taken his memory from him, but the days, weeks, months afterward as well.

“You had that coat,” Leslie said, touching a hand to the lapel of Jason’s coat. “And that was it. We thought you were traveling with your father or older brother, and something happened to him.”

That- no, that was wrong. “I remember the manor,” he said. “I could have sworn I’d been there before, when it was still alive.”

“Bruce Wayne frequently invited people from all around to parties and gatherings there,” Leslie said gently. “Your family might have taken you to one before that night.”

That made sense, and aligned with some of what his dreams had shown him, but- so many threads leading so many directions, tangled into fierce knots, and with him at the center and no one around him willing to help untangle them. Leslie probably knew more than she was telling him, but either way he had clearly hit the limit on what she was willing to share. Alfred definitely knew more, and Dick-

Dick had tried, Jason realized abruptly. Dick had pushed, where Alfred and Leslie pulled back. He had stopped pushing when it became apparent that it put Jason in intense pain, but he had pushed. He had _tried_.

He better have survived that wolf, Jason thought fiercely.

“You need to be careful around Luthor,” Leslie said, bringing his wandering attention back to her. “Don’t let him or any of his men know about Dick or Alfred or the manor. Let them think you’re just another villager.”

“The baker saw me getting out of the carriage,” Jason told her, and her lips pursed.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “You’ve almost brawled with the guards three times this last year alone, that should help people remember you’re not Luthor’s spy.”

“Or convince them I am, and that I’m trying too hard,” Jason said wryly.

Leslie, never known for her patience, grunted and waved a hand dismissively. “Let them do their own hunting then,” she snapped. “You should lay low until Luthor’s gone, we’ll worry about it after that.”

“He expects me at the pronouncement.”

“Then go, and try not to cause any trouble.” She looked up at him, studying him. “You’re going back out tomorrow, aren’t you?”

Jason nodded, and she added, “Dick?” and he nodded again. She clicked her tongue and shook her head as she turned away.

“Be careful, Jason,” she said, as close to gently as she could with someone who was not injured and panicking. “You’re getting into something very dangerous, and Luthor will be watching.”

He didn’t tell her that he already knew, that he was being careful, that everything would be fine. He didn’t insult her like that. He just nodded, and moved away when she said nothing, and headed out of the kitchen. And left her there, alone, looking small and defeated, as the last shreds of her control over the situation slipped from her grasp.

* * *

Luthor set up in the town hall, and his guards took to patrolling it, leaving the village gates unguarded. That suited Jason well enough, and he left bright and early the next day. A whole day out of the village was going to be rough on his knee, but he would rather limp around for a while than spend any longer than necessary under the eye of Luthor or his men.

He checked the snares, out of habit and to have an explanation on hand. He didn’t head towards Alfred’s cottage, instead staying close to the village until he could be sure he didn’t have a shadow. Dick had seemed to find him easily enough the day before, presumably he could do it again today.

One of the snares had yielded a skinny rabbit, its leg long ago broken and healed wrong. It had suffered for its injury and was skin and bones, not worth taking back to the village, so in the afternoon Jason set up camp in a relatively clear spot, breaking down dry branches for kindling and kicking a spot free of snow for a fire. He gutted and skinned the rabbit as the sparks caught hold and strengthened into a proper flame, and skewered the rabbit and propped it in the flame to cook.

He had just taken it out and was poking it with his knife, checking for doneness, when movement caught his eye, and he snapped his head up and saw the wolf.

It was sitting across the fire from him, head up and ears pricked forward, looking very much like he had invited it to the meal and it was patiently waiting for him to serve it. For a moment Jason was frozen, breath caught in his lungs- he remembered the howl the previous night, Dick gone, no way to know if he was safe or if- but the wolf before him looked too skinny for such a meal.

“Hello,” he said, and the wolf shifted a little at his voice, not like it was ready to run but simply acknowledging him. And- it hadn’t shown any real aggression so far, for all its howling and haunting the woods.

“Are you hungry?” Jason asked, and it whuffed out a breath like it was answering the question.

A quarter turn around the fire, halfway between them, were the entrails from the rabbit, left in a pile on the skin for the crows and other scavengers once Jason was gone. He looked at it, even gestured towards it with the skewer-stick, like he thought the wolf might understand. To his surprise, it looked at the bloody pile, even bent over and dipped its huge head towards the entrails and took a delicate sniff. It sat back a moment later, lips pulled back to show pristine fangs in an expression startlingly similar to a human sneer.

“No?” he said, and the wolf watched him again, patient and expectant.

The rabbit on the stick was small and scrawny, but there was enough there for two light eaters. Jason cut awkwardly at one of the hind legs with his knife, trying to cut it off at the hip so the wolf got some decent meat, snatching his fingers away when melted fat dripped out and burned him. Finally he got it off, and tossed it through the fire close to where the wolf was sitting. It didn’t startle, just immediately turned and picked up the offering, laying down and pinning it carefully upright between its front paws and stripping the thigh meat off the bone.

“You have better manners than some humans I’ve eaten with,” Jason told it, and cut at the other leg. The wolf looked at him when he spoke to it, chewing open-mouthed at the too-hot meat, then returned to its meal.

“You can have the rest when I’m done,” Jason said, and leaned forward to pick more meat off the rabbit, bouncing it from hand to hand to cool it off.

The wolf said nothing, just crunched noisily on bone, and they ate together in peace.

* * *

He didn’t know what to expect, really, and only a rough idea of when- dusk, when the sun was freshly set. So he waited on one of his trails, halfway between Alfred’s cottage and the village, and watched through the trees as the light bled off the horizon.

There was movement, a subtle noise beside him, and he went tense and spared a single glance, then looked away to hide his relieved smile.

“So,” Dick said, close enough to touch, watching the last of the sunlight fade as well. “Not frozen to death, not eaten by wolves- do you trust me to take care of myself now?”

“Not wearing a coat, _still_ ,” Jason pointed out, and Dick shot him a sharp smile.

“Learn to recognize a losing battle,” he said.

“Never,” Jason said simply. Never give up, never stop fighting just because he wasn’t going to win. Change tactics, certainly, but not just give up.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, Dick watching Jason in quiet expectation, Jason watching the stars come out in the small patch of sky he could see through the bare trees. There were so many questions to ask that they all crowded his throat and jammed up on his tongue, and the one that eventually made it out was somehow both the most and least important of the pack.

“Why can’t I remember?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Dick said, and Jason believed him when he said it. “I could guess, but a guess is all it would be.”

Jason waited, but apparently Dick wasn’t actually offering that guess. Finally he asked, “ _What_ don’t I remember?”

Dick sighed and wrapped his arms around himself. “I honestly couldn’t say,” he said, soft and quiet and, for some reason, regretful. “Again, I could guess. But Alfred thinks, and after yesterday I agree, that you’re best off remembering for yourself.”

After yesterday, Jason could see how that was something they might think. He might even have agreed, except that he was the one in the middle of all of this.

“The manor started all this,” he said. “Would it help to go back there?”

Dick shook his head helplessly, this answer no different from the last two. He was shivering in the cold, and it was getting hard to see him, night gathering around them. Jason felt a brief twinge of annoyance- did he seriously never learn?- then shrugged it off. They weren’t too very far from the camp he had set up and ended up sharing with the wolf, he could easily rekindle the fire.

“Come on,” he ordered, gesturing for Dick to follow, and turning and walking away without checking to see if he would.

Less than a second later, footsteps sounded behind him, and Jason smiled.

* * *

The fire came back to life quickly enough, as Jason had thought. He fed it the pieces of a broken branch and left it to burn as he stepped away. 

“I know I keep giving you reasons to doubt me, but I actually do know how to take care of myself,” Dick promised him, and belied his words by huddling a little closer to the fire.

“Have you eaten today?” Jason asked. He had another rabbit he could prepare. Of the wolf, there was no sign, not even a spare pawprint in the snow or a bone shard from its meal.

“I found the time earlier to have lunch with a friend. But if you’re hungry, by all means.” Dick gestured to the fire. Jason shook his head and went over to sit on the trunk of a fallen tree near, but not precisely next to, Dick. He wasn’t shivering as badly anymore, even if he was still woefully underdressed for the weather.

“So is there something special going on in the village? I thought I heard riders on the road last night,” Dick said, when it became clear Jason wasn’t going to continue their earlier conversation. He wanted to- he still had so many questions to ask, some that Dick might even answer- but at the same time, he was quietly enjoying the company, and didn’t want to spoil it.

“Lord Luthor arrived last night,” he said, and Dick went tense beside him. So much for not spoiling things. “He plans on doing his midwinter pronouncement here.”

Dick’s jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists, eyes staring deep into the fire. For a moment Jason worried he might do something rash- but when he spoke, his voice was controlled, calm and bland. “He’s a thief. He stole that power he’s so proud of.”

“From Bruce Wayne?” Jason asked. An easy enough conclusion to draw, after what Leslie told him. Apparently it was common knowledge, or at least Dick thought it was, for he nodded without a hint of surprise at Jason knowing that. “Have you met him? Alfred worked at the manor and he’s your grandfather, did he ever take you there?”

The sharp look Dick had given him at the question melted away. “Yes, I’ve been in the manor, and I met Bruce Wayne,” he said. He shifted closer to the fire, still shivering minutely despite its proximity, and Jason slid closer until their knees were touching. “I could say he was quiet and stern, but really, he was the sort of man you would have to have met, rather than have him described to you.”

Jason made a noise of acknowledgement and looked away. He was about to ask something else- some brainless, mindless question intended to change the subject- when Dick added, “And Alfred isn’t my grandfather. He’s just almost the father of the man who took me in after my parents died.”

“Oh,” Jason said, awkwardly caught between explaining that he knew Alfred and Dick weren’t related, he’d just been trying to keep it short, and offering condolences. Dick seemed to realize this and grimaced.

“It’s fine,” he said, preemptive against the stilted apology Jason had been about to give. “It was a long time ago.”

Carefully, aware he was stepping onto ice and not knowing how thick it was, Jason said, “Alfred told me he was the only family you had left. Did something happen to your…?”

Dick looked down and away, then faced the fire again. His eyes were bright and glittering in the firelight, his face dry despite the choking in his voice. “He’s gone. We argued- I fought with him a lot, when I got older. And then, when I was seventeen, there was a bad fight, and.” He shrugged and took a deep, bracing breath. “The last thing I said to him was that he would never have to lay eyes on me again, since he was so determined to be rid of me. It was so stupid, just some meaningless teenage nonsense, but it felt like the end of the world to me, then.”

That, at least, Jason had some idea what to do with. “He had to have known you didn’t mean it.”

Dick made a humming noise and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and draping his arms across one another. His hand fell just so, his thumb brushing against Jason’s knee just enough for him to feel the pressure of it through his trousers.

“The last thing he did before he- before, was to save my life. So I suppose you’re right.” He sounded- amused, wrongly so, and Jason finally breached that last bit of distance between them and put a hand on Dick’s arm in comfort. Their fingers brushed, and his hands were shockingly cold in spite of the fire.

“Is that why you’re punishing yourself?” Jason asked.

He had gloves, not yet removed from his coat pockets where they had been put as he had tended to the fire. It would be easier, simpler, to take them out and offer them to Dick. Instead he reached over, taking Dick’s other hand and bringing them together so Jason could wrap his own around them and press his warmth into them. Dick allowed it, watching with heavy-lidded eyes and a strange smile.

“I’m not punishing myself, it’s just inconvenient to bother with it when it won’t matter a few minutes later,” Dick said, shifting his hands a little and weaving his fingers together. “This is just a transition, an in-between. It doesn’t last.”

Jason looked at him, confused- but he could see the cracks already, and knew better than to take that one final step out onto the ice. Daring enough to be holding the man’s hands, even under the excuse of warming them. If he had wanted Jason to understand, he would have made himself clear.

He watched the smoke from the fire billow up into the sky and waited until Dick’s hands were human-warm under him again before releasing him and leaning away again.

“As soon as Luthor’s gone, I’m going back to the manor,” he said.

“All right,” Dick said, rubbing his hands together.

“Should I tell Alfred, or will he try to stop me?” Jason asked.

“Leave a note on his door,” Dick decided after a few seconds’ thought. “We don’t need you passing out in the snow alone again.” He glanced over his shoulder, watching for something in the distance as he always was, and Jason nodded and looked away.

“You’re heading out soon,” he said, not bothering to frame it as a question.

“You can only linger so long on the threshold when the door is closing,” Dick agreed. He put his hands down to brace himself, one on the log and the other on Jason’s knee, and stood up. “I imagine I will be seeing you soon?”

Jason almost, _almost_ , put out his own hand to brush over his knee where Dick’s had been. One daring touch to answer another, and it felt somehow thrillingly intimate. He had never felt so pinioned by a single touch, not even when he was fifteen and a farmer’s daughter had taken him behind the mill and kissed him.

“I imagine you will,” he said, as calmly as he could manage. He had an image to maintain, and he wasn’t going to let Dick rattle him, especially not when Dick was smiling at him like a bastard and clearly knew exactly what he was doing.

“Wait,” Jason added, even though Dick had not yet begun to move. “You said Luthor stole Bruce Wayne’s power- what did you mean?”

“Bruce was an avatar of the night,” Dick said. “He had dominion over darkness, and controlled moonlight and shadow alike. Luthor found out how to steal that, I don’t know how, and he took it.”

Jason thought of the previous night, the stopped carriage on the road, the darkness pressing in tight until Jason had no choice but to get in. “Moonlight and shadows,” he echoed.

“They used to say what the moon could see, Bruce could see,” Dick said. “Will you be safe, heading home this late?”

“Yes, all the guards were pulled from the gates and set to guard Luthor, so there will be no one to see when I come in,” Jason said, then gestured towards nothing in specific. “Your door is closing.”

“Get home safe,” Dick said, and ducked away into the trees, disappearing quickly out of the shallow ring of firelight. Jason watched him go, waited until the sounds of his footsteps faded away, then stood himself to kick snow over the fire. No sense in leaving it burning and marking his spot with smoke in the sky.

Then he shouldered his string of rabbits and turned and headed home.


	5. Chapter 5

The pronouncement began the next day, the winter solstice, at noon. It was the shortest day of the year but bid to feel like the longest- the entire village, plus a few good number of Luthor’s court who had been arriving in bunches the last day or so, gathered tight against the cold just outside the double doors of the town hall and stood awkwardly, the few seats given to the nobles. Up on the makeshift stage erected on the doorstep of the town hall, an older man wearing a robe with elaborate suns and moons stitched along the hems spoke about the turning of the seasons and the passage of time.

As the miller’s daughter had predicted, the women had broken out their fanciest dresses and shawls and many were visibly staring at the nobles up front, visibly distracted from the speech by the presence of wealth. Most men were plucking miserably at itchy woolen jackets and fancy trousers and exchanging miserable looks with each other around their wives. Jason, lacking both wife and mother, had gotten away with wearing his normal clothes to the ceremony, hood tucked under his newly cleaned coat to hide its eye-catching color. He hovered on the fringes of the crowd, better dressed for the weather and not needing to cram together with the rest of them to conserve heat, and looked for Luthor.

There was movement inside the town hall every so often, people stirring in the dark inside the building. He saw sunlight reflect off metal, and knew there were guards in there, so presumably Luthor was as well. He would have to come out sooner or later, there was no point in his coming all the way out to this village if his role in the ceremony was to lurk offstage.

Because he was waiting for something to happen, he noticed it quickly, the light shifting and fading as though clouds were moving across the sun, even though it had been days since a single cloud had crossed the sky. Jason stepped back and looked up.

There were no clouds still, but the sun had gone- strange. It burned as bright as ever, but it looked almost like the light was being directed away from their little village, streaming in beams in all directions outward but barely shining directly downward. It was as though some great giant had placed a half-sphere of smoked glass over the area, and the sunlight was flowing down around it like water flowing in a stream around a rock.

This did not seem like power over shadows and moonlight- there were no shadows there, only sunlight itself being commanded like a dog. This was not the power Luthor had stolen from Wayne, but something else entirely.

There was noise, movement from the crowd, and Jason snapped his gaze back down- he had been staring directly at the sun and his eyes weren’t even watering, it had dimmed that much- and shuffled with them as they parted. The darkening of the sun had happened gradually enough that no one else seemed to have noticed it, the villagers all whispering amongst themselves as the nobles paraded past. They looked stiff and unhappy, and whispered amongst themselves in turn, no doubt wondering as much as anyone else why Luthor had decided to come here for this.

Then the guards came past, and Jason straightened up- and then there was Luthor.

He was a surprisingly big man, taller than Jason and broader in the shoulders. He was bald, Jason noticed, and trying to hide it with the same hooded cloak that he had worn in the carriage, the hood tailored to pull back and show his face while still pulling down enough to almost hide his naked scalp. His eyes were deepset and black in the shadow of his brow, and they flitted over the crowd like a bird on the wing, barely resting on any one spot for a second. He only stopped and stared when he finally spotted Jason, just long enough to make eye contact before Jason looked down and away, and when he glanced up again Luthor had moved on.

The procession came to a stop on the main road near the shops. The guards fanned out around Luthor, armed and armored and holding the crowd at bay with their presence and their challenging gazes. Luthor turned to watch and wait, and Jason pushed through the crowd until he could clearly see the man. He wanted a good view of whatever happened next.

“I know,” Luthor said suddenly, and the whispering and shuffling died out abruptly. He had a good voice for this, rich and deep and easily projected, and he knew it well. “I know this winter has been a hard one, harder than all that came before it.”

The farmers shifted and glanced at each other, as though they thought themselves directly to blame for the string of bad luck that had plagued them this year, the early frost, the bad yield of autumn crops. Luthor waited for them to settle before he continued.

“Were we in the city, this would be a proper ceremony with a grand celebration and a feast,” Luthor announced. “But this year, I have come to tell you your suffering has not gone unnoticed. The darkest days of winter are now behind us, and the hard times will soon be just a memory. I will bring the sunlight of spring and you will forget what it is to live life in the cold and the dark!”

The sun had been gaining brightness again as he spoke, shining softly down on Luthor. As he finished, it exploded outward in a rolling wave, causing villagers and nobles alike to cry out and flinch as the muted sunlight suddenly shone again in its full power. It was a good theater, Jason gave him that much- it had been cold and dim with the sunlight blocked out, and the wave of light was bright and warm and felt very much like the first true day of spring after a long cold winter. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell the wet earth, the green scent of growing things.

Luthor had been holding his arms up, face turned towards the sun. He dropped them again and looked down at the crowd, and in the shadow cast by his head, Jason could see something on his chest was glowing faintly, a soft white light almost drowned out by the syrupy gold sunlight.

The pendant, the sun and moon one Jason had seen in the carriage, was the source of the glow. The moon half was dark and inert, but the sun half shone with a light that was fading away. Jason looked, then looked away, and when he dared glance back the glow was gone.

After a stunned silence, there was applause, cheering, people pressing forward and then stepping back when they ran into the unyielding wall of the guards. Jason melted back into the crowd, letting himself get lost in the sea of people. He had been observed as present at the ceremony, and he had seen what he needed to see. All he needed now was an opportunity to quietly excuse himself.

“There will still be a feast, rest assured,” Luthor called over the noise. He gestured, and a cart that had been parked beside the last shop on the row was pulled forward, the tarp covering dramatically yanked away to reveal three freshly slaughtered pigs, bushels of turnips and potatoes, smooth unblemished red apples, a wheel of cheese, a basket of eggs. The clamor grew louder, excitement rising, the hungry people of a village on the knife’s edge finally anticipating a good meal. The generous and powerful Lord Luthor had won them over, surely enough, and in his generosity ensured that they would never think to wonder why, when such food could so easily be spared, they had been left to starve until now.

“There is enough for all,” Luthor said. “Tonight, we all feast like lords.”

There was laughter, and the crowd shifted, starting to disperse at the edges. The baker and his wife ran off to stoke the fires and set to baking loaves worthy of such a meal, the other women of the village approached the cart in order to inquire about the cooking process.

The nobles still hung together in a little clot, pressed tight against each other to best escape the unwashed horde of the common folk. Jason drifted by them as he wandered off, ambling slowly but careful not to look as though he were actually listening in.

“- not at all like his usual performance in the city,” one young man was saying. “Why does he even care about this insignificant little place? Send a baron, if you really think these people are worth the fuss.”

The woman on his right said something, and the whole group chuckled, dark and derisive. Then Jason had moved on, and could not hear what the idiot said in reply, and could not come up with a good enough excuse soon enough to double back before they had retreated into the town hall.

Jason went to go get Leslie, to tell her there was free food and she wasn’t allowed to sneer at it for it being from Luthor. A good meal was too important to spit on it, even if it meant smiling pretty and playing stupid for a few hours.

They ate at dusk, all of them clustered into the town hall, elbows on others’ plates and toes constantly trodden upon. And as they ate, for the first time in weeks, it began to snow.

* * *

_a door slamming, a voice yelling, an argument fierce and wrong, so very wrong, why don’t you just leave if you hate him so much-_

_\- the boy- young man, really, only a handful of years older than him but important years, the years between high voices and chubby faces, and long leg and sharp smiles and a jawline that could cut like a knife- stood and stared in open-mouthed shock, and he recoiled tighter still. this stranger had found him here, in a place he had only ever been safe. this stranger was stunned to see him._

_“alfred!” the young man yelled, staring wide-eyed and folding inward, backward, like he had been dealt a terrible blow. “who are you?”_

_“i’m ---” and the young man breathed out, raw and ragged, grief and pain and fury on his handsome face-_

_glass like ice against skin, voices raised, one yelling, if you hate me that much don’t worry, don’t worry, you’ll never lay eyes on me again_

_\- the young man was so much like the heroes in the books, handsome and blue-eyed and charming when he remembered to be, and so much not like them, sharp and hollow and fragile and angry, sharpening his claws on whatever, whoever he felt like, sharp teeth bared and set for blood. he was beautiful in his rage, beautiful in his peace, beautiful when he smiled and when he sneered._

_“it’s nothing to do with you, don’t worry about it,” he said, and squeezed the hand on his shoulder, and he was lying and it tasted bitter like bile and he just wanted this liar gone since that was what he wanted, wanted him to go, go, go-_

_voices arguing, different now, your son is here how long do you think he can hide from me-_

He woke gently this time, compared to the other times the manor’s ghosts visited him. He was warm and well-fed and comfortable, and now he knew. Now he had the missing piece that put it all into perspective.

Dick Grayson had been Bruce Wayne’s son, and Jason had been profoundly, humiliatingly, uselessly in love with him. And that meant Jason, in turn, had been more than just a one-time partygoer in the Wayne Manor.

The sun was up, he could see it shining around the corners of the window covering. Not early, but not late either, especially considering how late the feasting ran the night before. No point in even pretending to go back to sleep now. It would be annoying to wait until nightfall, but Dick would tell him what he wanted to know, Dick had been telling him bits and pieces from the start, Dick had wanted from the first to tell Jason everything and only refrained because Jason’s head tried to cave itself in every time they pushed the issue.

He packed for a longer journey than usual, and put his hood up to hide his face, and left by the still-unguarded gate to the east, leaving clear footprints in the fresh ankle-deep snow, and never once thought to look behind him.

* * *

He would not have gone to Alfred’s cottage if he had not seen the wolf tracks in the snow.

He’d had the idea of waiting until dusk again, having the fire built up and burning by the time Dick appeared, doubtless unprepared as always for the weather. But when he reached the clearing he had had the fire in the other day- it would be hard to find dry wood now, he’d need to get an early start on it- there were wolf tracks. Circling, cutting across, tight little clusters in the middle with an occasional strange narrow furrow, most likely the print from a sniffing nose dragging through the snow. They were fresh, clear and sharp-edged and not blurred by melting and the wind shifting the snow. 

After it was done snuffling around, possibly looking for some dropped treat from the other day, the wolf had turned and trotted out of the clearing, straight as an arrow through the trees, aiming unerringly for Alfred’s cottage.

The wolf had never behaved as a threat, had seemed almost tame- but Alfred was old, not young and big and capable, and Jason couldn’t risk it. Whatever else he was, whatever lies he had told or truths he had not told, he was still Jason’s friend.

Jason followed the tracks through the forest, abandoning the hunting trail to follow the wolf’s path exactly, as close to a run as the trees would let him get. His knee was aching, a quiet distant pain from overexertion. He had not been kind to it these past few weeks. He didn’t slow down, not with the imagining of Dick’s expression when he learned that he had lost that one last tether.

He came to the clearing around Alfred’s cottage, and checked himself. The wolf was sitting in the middle of the clearing, staring due west, and Alfred was standing in the doorway of the cottage with a coat draped over his arm. He was clearly aware of the wolf, was watching it unafraid, and Jason stepped back into the cover of the trees and watched. He glanced westward once, but could see nothing through the trees.

There was nothing at first, just the frozen tableau as all three waited for- something. Then the wolf shuddered, fur rippling over muscle, and stood up and shook itself off and reared up onto its hind legs-

Its fur flowed like water off its body, bones audibly twisting and snapped, a grunt of pain and a single curse, barely breathed out-

And where the wolf had been sitting, Dick Grayson now stood, head down and cradled in his hands like it was hurting. The black wolf pelt at his feet had already melted into the snow, gone as though it were never even there.

Jason stared, his breath caught in his throat, his mind racing, his thoughts frantic but nonsensical. All he could do was stand and watch, and hope neither of them happened to look in his direction.

“Here,” Alfred said, stepping forward to drape the coat around Dick’s shoulders, over the light jacket Dick was always wearing. Dick clutched at it, pulling it tight around himself, aiming a smile of relief at Alfred with his incredibly blue eyes- blue eyes, black hair, _I don’t bite, normally I have a nice heavy coat_ \- how had Jason not seen it? Dick had practically written it out for him. He had been so blind, so stupid, Dick must have been laughing at him this entire time.

“You’re staying here tonight,” Alfred said, bustling Dick over to the cottage. “I know you’ve been going out to meet with Jason every night but it’s too risky. Luthor is in that village.”

“I know,” Dick protested as Alfred came around him to open the door. “I’m a wolf ninety percent of my life anymore, Alfred, you don’t need to worry about me. And Jason doesn’t need your fussing either, he’s a grown man now and he-”

What Dick thought Jason was, Jason did not hear, for Alfred herded the younger man inside and shut the door on his words. Warm firelight glowed through the kitchen window, and then there were figures moving past it. He stepped back, turned and moved away, his legs shaking from something more than just cold. He followed his own tracks back until he could loop around the cottage without risking being seen by its inhabitants.

To the west, the last of the sunlight bled off the horizon, and night settled properly on the land.

* * *

Jason knew that his feet were taking him to the manor, but it was still almost a surprise when he looked up and saw the ivied gates. The snow behind him was pristine save for his own tracks, and when he pushed the gate open and slid through it, there was only a single rabbit’s trail across the garden.

He didn’t really know what he was doing there, what he hoped to accomplish. The manor was cursed, by who didn’t matter, and any chance of reversing it was years gone. Alfred had said the key was lost, if it even existed in the first place, and if there was some easy way to fix this, Dick probably would have already tried it. He had told Jason directly that Bruce’s last act had been to protect Dick, in spite of their brutal fights. Even if he only had a few hours every day as human, he most likely would have spent them trying to reverse the curse if he could, find a way to return Bruce’s powers to him-

Jason paused, and wood creaked under him. He was halfway up the stairs, almost at the manor’s doors. The porch roof had protected the entryway from the new snow, and in the old snow near the doors Jason could see his own footprints. He stared at them, his brain finally shaking off the fog that had clouded it since watching Dick’s transformation

Bruce Wayne had been an avatar of the night, commanding moonlight and shadows. But Luthor had controlled sunlight to achieve the effect at the pronouncement. So, what if there was an avatar of the day as well? It made sense- day and night balanced each other, why _should_ there only be an avatar of the night? And Luthor somehow had their powers too, stolen away. 

If that was the case, that pendant Luthor wore, the one that had been glowing at the pronouncement, was probably a good place to start with returning Wayne’s power to him and breaking the curse on Dick and the manor.

Something inside the manor stirred. A ghost, probably, he could feel the bitter cold settling around him. Jason retreated quickly- he was in no frame of mind to deal with that, no matter what his feet had thought when bringing him here.

He walked back across the garden, head down and feet carefully placed in his own prints. He didn’t know how long Luthor was going to remain in the village, now that the pronouncement was done. It would be hard, finding a way to get that pendant from him. Easier, perhaps, to return to Alfred’s cottage the next day and ask for help with that. Admit what he knew, what he had figured out, what he had seen. For now, he felt he had earned a few hours of distance from them.

He slid past the gate again and wrenched it shut, then followed his own tracks back. He didn’t know this part of the forest well enough to be taking shortcuts. He was watching the ground- he knew now that the wolf truly was no threat to him- watching the path, not the forest around him.

He never once felt the eyes watching him the whole way home.

* * *

It was well after midnight when Jason made it back to the village. It was dark, the moon barely rising and shining weakly off the snow, the torch at the gate unlit as the guard post was still empty. Jason ducked past it, scanning the road and the shops ahead, watching for movement. He kept to the side of the road himself, and ducked around behind the shops as soon as he could. The villagers’ attitude towards him had shifted, treacherous as the tide, from suspicion back to genial acceptance after Luthor had won them all over at the pronouncement, but Jason was still keen to avoid them when possible.

He was past the mill, halfway up the path to the houses along the treeline, when he stopped. The house he shared with Leslie had come into view, and the kitchen window was lit up, the cookfire still burning. Leslie never stayed up this late, the fire should be burned down almost to embers.

Footprints in the snow, one-two-three different sets. Jason’s own from that morning, Leslie’s from heading in and out all day, and one other. A man’s feet in a man’s boots, the soles patterned. A rich man’s boots.

Jason was tired and cold, his knee was hurting, his head ached, and he could feel the tips of his fingers going numb even in his gloves. He could not go home, but he couldn’t go back out into the forest either. He could slip into the oven room in the bakery, perhaps, and warm up next to the oven until the baker came in to get the morning loaves started. He took a step backwards down the path, watching the house for any sign from whoever was in there that they had noticed him-

He glanced back, and froze. Three of Luthor’s men had come out of the town hall and were heading his way. They were wearing their armor, and all three had weapons on their belts and hands on hilts.

He couldn’t run, they would chase him, and they were fresh and warm. And even if he somehow managed to dodge them, the only safety he could think of outside of the village was Alfred’s cottage, and he wouldn’t make it that far. He couldn’t fight, they were armed and, by their expressions, fully prepared to spill blood. The only option left to him was to stand and face what was coming.

“Do you need something?” he asked as the guards approached, fanning out so they were in a triangle around him. It was meant to unnerve, and it worked- no matter which way he turned, he could only see two of them at most at a time.

“Lord Luthor is waiting for you,” one of the guards said. He gestured along the road, towards Leslie’s house, and Jason turned and started walking back that way, a guard on either hand and one far too close to his back.

One of the guards went inside first, positioning himself in the kitchen doorway and watching with a sour frown as Jason kicked the snow off his boots before coming in. He came over to stand in the doorway as well, and was impatiently gestured beyond into the room.

Luthor was sitting at the kitchen table, in Leslie’s chair. He was sipping something gold and steaming from a crystalline cup that most certainly didn’t belong in that kitchen, and he was reading the book Dick had lent Jason.

Jason curled his hands into fists, the movement hidden against his coat. Then the guard pushed him further, indicating for him to sit in the other chair.

“Interesting choice in reading material,” Luthor said once Jason was seated- on the very edge of the seat, prepared to bolt for all that would accomplish nothing. “I especially like this part.”

He turned the book to face Jason, and there was Alfred’s neat handwriting on the title page, _Property of the Wayne Library_.

“Where did you find such an interesting book?” Luthor asked.

The guard had moved away from the doorway, Jason peripherally aware of the movement but not daring to take his eyes off Luthor. The fire behind Luthor was darkening. The moon half of the pendant around Luthor’s neck- do not stare, do not stare, _do not stare_ \- seemed to be absorbing the light around it.

Whatever happened, Jason wasn’t giving Alfred or Dick up to this man. “I found it in the woods,” he said. There was no point in putting any effort into lying when the outcome of this encounter was already decided.

“It’s in remarkable condition for being abandoned in a forest,” Luthor said, flipping through the pages. He finally closed it and set it aside and took a sip from his cup. It smelled fruity, like a hot cider instead of tea. He drained it to the last drop, then carefully set the cup on the counter behind him, and Jason braced himself. This was almost certainly going to hurt.

“I want the truth now, Jason,” Luthor said, leaning forward, staring at him with his cold dark glittering eyes. The pedant was lost in a well of darkness, the fire was flat and strangely dim even though it was burning merrily.

“I don’t know what truth you’re looking for, I told you-” Jason said.

Darkness surged, and the light was almost entirely gone from the room, only moonlight shining through the window in streaks like silver knives. Something strong, something not shaped remotely like a hand, took Jason by the neck and upper chest and dragged him backwards out of his chair and slammed him into the wall behind him. He scrambled at it with his hands and felt nothing, just chilled air parting like shadows, pressure unrelenting on his throat but nothing for his fingers to grasp.

Luthor stood, and the moonlight glanced across his face, and his expression was one of twisted rage. “I know you’ve been to the manor in the forest, Jason, I’ve had someone watching it,” he said, his tone belying his face. “What were you doing there? Who told you about it?”

Jason wheezed, and the pressure on his neck relented just enough for him to draw air. He pushed up, his legs folded awkwardly before him as he hadn’t had time to get his feet under him between the char and the wall, and finally stood. Luthor had come around the table and was just close enough-

He was expecting words, another lie, a desperate explanation. The wad of spittle hit him on the cheek, missing his eye only by the grace of a reflexive flinch. Jason grinned, fierce and wild, as Luthor leaned away and touched his fingers to his cheek, wiping the spit away with gloved fingertips.

“Very well,” Luthor said. “We’ll discuss this later, when you’re in a more… _agreeable_ mood.”

The darkness gathered again, and the pressure returned, and Jason clawed at it, feeling his fingers bruise his own throat and do nothing to free him, until the darkness was inside as well as out, and Jason knew no more.


	6. Chapter 6

The village had very little in the way of crime, and so didn’t have much in the way of a jail. Many years ago, though, there had been an unrepentant drunkard who liked to start fights and refused to keep his drinking at home, and the village elders had agreed to convert the town hall’s cellar into a single jail cell for him. There were no windows, a perpetual smell of damp earth even in the hard freeze of winter, and a heavy door that hung oddly on its hinges and only stayed shut when it was locked.

They had confiscated his hunting knife while he was unconscious, but they had let Jason keep his coat and his boots, for which he could not muster up the necessary self-hatred to be grateful. It was warmer in the cell than it was outside, at least, especially since he took to pacing around the outer edges of the room to pass the time and keep his knee from stiffening up from inactivity.

He should have gone to Alfred’s cottage last night, should have told Alfred and Dick what he’d figured out, instead of sulking. At the very least, they would have had some idea of how to proceed.

He was on his seventh lap of the room, sweat burning at his skin under his heavy coat, when the door juddered in its frame, the locks being undone.

“If you’re close enough when I open this door, I’m stabbing you,” the guard outside the door said, and Jason moved away to the far corner. Luthor had said that the questioning would continue later, and he would probably badly punish the guard for stabbing him, but if Jason were already dead, that wouldn’t do much for him.

A pause, and the last lock rattled and the door opened. The guard stood in the doorway with a knife in hand, true to his word. He looked at Jason and snorted, then stepped aside to allow in the miller’s daughter. She came into the cell with her hands full, a rough wooden bowl filled with a meaty-smelling liquid in one hand and a cup of water in the other. She looked around, but lacking an immediately obvious place to set them down, she came over to Jason and offered them to him. Clearly a mission of mercy, and not prepared at all for handling a potentially violent prisoner.

“Leslie took a horse early this morning and rode out, she’s safe,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. Jason took the cup and bowl from her in order to steady his hands, which wanted to shake from the sheer relief. He had wondered, alone in the dark with precious little to occupy his mind, wondered and worried after her fate. Surely some blame for his actions would splash over onto her- but she was out, she was gone, she was safe.

“Thank you,” he said, equally as quiet, and the young woman nodded and gave him a pale smile, then turned and walked out the door. The guard came back into the doorway, watching Jason for a moment before pushing the door shut and locking it again. Enough light speed around its badly matched edges that Jason could still easily see, and he sat down to eat.

Luthor taught him, scared of his powers, and ignorant on how to fight back against them. But they had been Bruce Wayne’s powers first, and Bruce’s son had already given Jason the key- _what the moon could see, Bruce could see_. He had a couple of hours, once the sun set, while Luthor was blind. He had an opportunity, and he was not going to waste it.

He ate, and rolled the empty water cup between his fingers, and planned.

* * *

Sleep, when it came, surprised him. He hadn’t expected it, not now of all times, and yet-

_glass like ice against skin, voices raised in argument, a door slamming, a tired sigh and an apology-_

_\- the gate opened onto a garden, beautiful and well-kept, and he sat up on his knees to peer out the carriage window at it. there were roses in the corner and hedges to hide behind and a house, a giant house with so many rooms._

_“your new home, if you will have it,” the man who had brought him here said, and he twisted around to look. pale, like he spent no time in the sun, dark blue eyes and a face given more readily to frowning than smiling, but he looked worried. like he thought his kindness was not enough, would be rejected._

_“it’s great,” he said, and the man’s expression eased just a little-_

_the door swinging open, a noise of pain, light so bright it burned like daylight_

_\- he stood in the garden and wove moonlight between his fingers like the finest of silk, summoned shadows like faithful hounds, drew shimmering patterns on the night air with starlight. he could be fierce if he wanted but he was so gentle here, now, amusing himself, entertaining the whims of a child. he was smiling in the silvered light, and he looked at peace for the first time he had ever seen-_

_a hold that was not hands on his shoulders, silence in the room, no sign of life no breathing no moving, and he ran_

He jolted awake, shuddering and blinking back fierce tears, gasping like he had just run a race. He had sat down to rest, and falled asleep with his head leaned awkwardly back against the wall. He folded down on himself, legs pulled up to his chest and face pressed against his knees.

Bruce. That had been Bruce Wayne. Jason had been far more than a casual visitor, he had been Bruce’s second son, for however shortly he’d had with him before Luthor came and took it all away.

There were no windows, no way to judge the passage of time. He might have already missed this night’s window. He got up, pushing aside the memories, the thoughts of Bruce, and went over to the door.

“What time is it?” he asked, and the guard on the other side made a startled noise.

“Shut up, boy,” the guard spat. “It doesn’t matter what time it is.”

“Day or night, will you at least tell me that?” Jason demanded. He could see the guard’s shadow around the edges of the door, watched as it turned and moved towards him. The door shuddered on its bad hinges as something heavy, presumably a fist, smashed into it.

“Be quiet,” the guard snapped.

He waited until the guard had relaxed and moved away, then leaned his shoulder against the door near the hinges, testing it. There was a lot of give- it definitely wasn’t a proper prison cell, and his best chance of ever escaping. The wood planking groaned under the pressure and Jason froze, but the guard had either moved far enough away that he did not hear, or did not care.

The hinges were the weak point, the heavy iron eating into a door that had not been meant to be barred and locked, and should have been replaced long ago. Jason knelt down and watched under the door, watching for shadows, then worked his fingers into the gap between the frame and the door and pulled at the plank the lower hinge attached to. It splintered under his strength, the crack arching up through the wood. Another tug just above the same hinge, and the wood broke free, leaving the hinge holding a splintered-off chunk of wood the size of Jason’ hand and the door holding by the top hinge only.

“What are you doing in there?” the guard called, sounding a decent distance away but now approaching. Jason stepped back, hoping desperately- if he tried to open the door, the damage would be obvious.

Then a voice called out, echoing oddly through the building, and the guard’s shadow, only just visible under the door, hesitated before turning away. He called back, and Jason tracked him by the sound of voices, and got to work on the top hinge when he deemed them far enough. He wasn’t armed and couldn’t possibly hold his own against two armed men, but the town hall had plenty of windows and he had a nice heavy coat that would take the brunt of the beating if he decided to jump out of one of them. After that, make it to the woods, and they would never be able to find him. Today, unlike last night, he had the strength to run.

The door was weaker at the top hinge, where it had sagged in its frame and was pulling with its full weight against the hinge when it wasn’t locked. The wood was rotted and felt soft like half-dried clay, crumbling wetly against his hand, and the door clunked noisily against the locks that were now all that held it in place. Jason pushed it open and it groaned and scratched loudly along the floor, and the guard yelled something-

He made it out the door just in time to see it, familiar blue eyes in a pretty face, the guard turning his back and opening his mouth to yell when he saw Jason free. Then the other man _moved_ slick and fast like a fox on the hunt, coming in low under the arm the guard had thrown out to keep him back, coming up beside him and planting an elbow along his flank where the armor did not cover, a fist in his throat, a leg hooked behind the guard’s knee to bear him down even as he collapsed and gasped for air. For a moment Jason saw nothing, the man blocking his view with his body, then he stood, and the guard stayed down.

“Take his weapon,” Dick ordered as Jason came over. He was wearing a proper coat for once, hood up although it had fallen back a bit in his two-second takedown of the guard. His expression was purely that of a wolf’s, eyes steady and watchful, lips pulled slightly back in a soundless snarl to show blunt teeth.

The guard had no sword- in close quarters like this, a sword would hinder more than help- but he had a wicked knife, longer and sharper than Jason’s hunting knife. He took it and the belt it was sheathed on and looped it around his own waist.

“How long do you have?” he asked.

“A couple of hours, the sun just set,” Dick said, then looked at him. “So what do you remember?”

“Bits and pieces,” Jason said, then, “enough,” and that was true. He had so many questions still, but he had enough, he had a framework. And then, because it needed to be said, he added, “I saw you last night. At the cottage.”

“I know,” Dick said, and tapped his nose. For a moment he just stood there, watching Jason with a carefully patient expression, looking like he was waiting for something. Waiting- waiting to be pushed away, Jason realized suddenly.

“What’s the plan?” he asked. He was not happy with being lied to but, in the end, it wasn’t his secret, wasn’t something he was entitled to know. He had to trust that Dick would have told him on his own time, if given the opportunity. And honestly, of all the secrets being kept, this one was the one that least impacted Jason himself.

“Well,” Dick said, relief at Jason’s easy acceptance melting into a grin that looked almost feral, “ _something_ got at Luthor’s men’s horses, scared them all out of the stables and sent them running off. So we’re on foot, but so are they, and I do believe you and I know these woods better than them.”

Jason couldn’t help the smile he gave in return, fierce and showing too many teeth, and they moved as one, stepping around the unconscious guard and walking to the door. Outside, it was as Dick said, dark but not night-black, the last light of day still fading. There was another guard just outside, slumped awkwardly back against the wall near the door. This one was wearing a sword, but Jason let it be. He didn’t have the training to be any sort of threat with that kind of weapon, and it would only slow him down.

Dick hesitated, and Jason stepped forward to take the lead without a hitch. He led Dick into the village, behind the shops down the road. The gate they needed was unguarded, the road into the forest clear. Jason nevertheless lingered by the wall of the bakery, searching constantly for threats. Dick settled in beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

“Ready?” Jason asked, and Dick nodded, eyes dark as midnight. Jason put his hood up, took a deep breath, and stepped away from the false shelter of the bakery and onto the road, following it out of the village, Dick half a step behind him the entire way.

* * *

There were other tracks on the trail Jason had used to return to the village the previous night, three extra sets of human feet and one wolf. He stopped at the sight of them, glanced back at Dick to confirm he was still there and still human, and broke away from the trail and went into the forest proper. 

“Did anyone follow us?” he asked, and Dick shook his head and broke into a trot for a moment to pull alongside Jason. He was half a handspan shorter, and matching their strides was annoyingly difficult.

“No,” he said, and caught at Jason’s arm to slow him down and force him to look over. “What do you remember?” he asked plaintively.

“I remember Bruce,” Jason said, and gently pulled his arm away so they could keep moving. They could walk and talk, and needed to keep up a good pace if they were going to do anything tonight other than get caught again. “A party, a man and a woman who seemed important to Bruce.”

“Clark and Diana,” Dick said, and offered a slight grin when Jason glanced back at him. “Bruce didn’t have many friends.”

“Clark.” A familiar name- the man who was warm as summer and smiled like sunlight. “He had powers like Bruce’s, didn’t he?”

“Kind of. He was an avatar of the day, while Bruce was of the night. He commanded sunlight. And yes, I believe Luthor stole his powers too.”

So the moon and sun both were turned against them- anything either saw, Luthor could see. It explained why Dick had such a narrow window of humanity, if the wolf had been intended to hide him from Luthor.

“And Diana?”

“Avatar of earth. Luthor doesn’t have her powers, we’d all be dead if he did. I don’t know what happened to her. Alfred sent a hundred letters asking for her help, and he never got one back.”

So no help from that quarter, then. There was a pause as Jason ducked under the grasping branch of a tree and slid down an unexpected shallow gully caused by erosion around the roots. He caught his footing with no fuss, waited for Dick to come down, and added, “I remember you. You hated me.”

“No,” Dick said, fast and snappish. He had been expecting something like that.

“Well, no, I thought you hated me back then. Resented might be a better word for it.”

“No,” Dick said again, and blew out a tired breath, too sharp to be a sigh. “Yes. I don’t- I never had the chance to sort myself out before.” And he gestured towards himself, then the sky.

Jason nodded and looked away. Dick was only a handful of years older than him, barely a man when Jason had been a child and newly arrived at the manor. It made sense that he would have chafed against such a stern authority figure as he remembered Bruce being.

“It’s,” Dick began, and sighed again. Finally he said, his voice soft and wretched, “I was eight when my parents died and Bruce took me in. I lived with him for almost a decade, and all that time, he was my guardian and I was his ward, and that was that. And then, I leave for a few months to visit Clark, and I come home and find he has another child in the house, a child he took in just as he took me in. But _this_ child, he officially adopted within days of meeting him, and declared him his heir. His _son_.”

Jason stopped walking, turning back to look at Dick. His face was pale as bone in the starlight, and he looked at Jason with cold, dark eyes. “So, yes, I was resentful, and angry, and betrayed. But mostly I was just trying to figure out what you had that I didn’t, that made you worthy of being his son.”

“He adored you,” Jason said, the words feeling distant in his throat. “I don’t remember much but I remember that. There must have been some reason for him not to adopt you, but it wasn’t because he didn’t think you worthy.”

Dick made a rude noise in his throat and turned away, starting off through the forest again. Jason easily caught up with him, although he had to stay behind him as they picked their way through the trees.

“You yourself said his last act was to protect you,” Jason pointed out.

“Oh, yes, he turned me into a wolf, to hide me from the all-seeing eye of Alexander Luthor,” Dick agreed, and his tone was biting, although it was impossible to guess whose blood he was tasting. “But he left me this, these scant hours of freedom. When neither moon nor sun is risen, I am myself again.”

“Would you rather he didn’t?” Jason asked.

Dick took a long time to answer that one. “No,” he said finally. “If I didn’t have this, I would have lost myself to the wolf entirely a long time ago.”

“So why are you so angry with him?” Jason demanded, and had to stop abruptly as Dick spun on his heel to face him.

“I’m not angry with Bruce, I’m.” He snapped his mouth shut and looked away for a minute, composing himself. When he looked back there was an indefinable but alarming expression on his face. “I thought about it so many times,” he said. “The timing, the night Luthor stole Bruce’s powers. The timing was so tight, do you remember that?”

“What do you mean?” Jason asked warily. This, this was something Dick hadn’t shared with anyone, something sharp-edged and pointy that had been stuck in his gullet probably since the night he was cursed.

“I fought with Bruce in his study again. I told him I was leaving for good, since he so obviously didn’t want me around. I left his study and went downstairs and I was walking out into the garden, and there were men there waiting, and just as they saw me and were coming over to attack me. That was the first time I transformed.” He smiled, a sickly, ghastly thing. “It was minutes, two, maybe three. Luthor had to have been in the manor when I left Bruce’s study. He and his men got onto the property and into the manor while I was yelling at Bruce.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Dick, no,” Jason said, already knowing where this was going.

“It was nighttime, the moon was out, he would have seen them coming if he hadn’t been so distracted by some stupid teenager taking his insecurities out on him-”

“You didn’t curse anyone,” Jason said. Honestly, was Dick truly so self-sacrificing that he would take the blame for this? “You had every reason to be upset with him, it wasn’t your fault. You are not responsible for this.”

Dick’s face was as blank and unflinching as stone. He was listening, but he was not hearing anything Jason said. He turned away again, and Jason let him go, not knowing what to say to get through to him. Likely there was nothing that Jason could do- it would probably take Bruce Wayne himself to fix this. He followed after Dick in silence, hating the tight line across Dick’s shoulders, the tension in his frame. 

Well, there was one way to fix it. Dick had shown him his bleeding, wounded heart. Jason could do the same for him.

“I loved you, you know,” he said.

Dick, all sinuous grace, missed a step and slid in the snow, fetching up against a tree and snapping around to stare wide-eyed. “You- what?”

“Back then,” Jason said, like that needed clarifying. “I resented you too, a little. I kept thinking that you clearly hated being there, so you should just leave already. But I loved you too.” Dick was still staring at him, so he shrugged one shoulder. “I was a child, and you were the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. I suppose, back then, that’s what I thought love was.”

Dick opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

“Disappointed?” Jason asked, a double-edged blade of a question. He pushed on before Dick could answer it. “Anyways, it was stupid, and so was I. I barely knew you. I still don’t.”

“Jason,” Dick said, his voice scraping out of his throat. “You’re the first person I’ve truly talked to in a dozen years. You know me better than anyone in the world right now.”

“Alfred-” Jason began, shaking his head.

“Alfred’s holding onto the memory of who I used to be. I love that man, but he’s got a way of seeing people only how he wants to see them, not how they really are.” Dick pushed a hand through his hair, pushing his hood back in the process. “So, no. I’m not disappointed.”

Jason breathed through it, letting it settle. For the first time, he let that little spark breathe air, let it kindle and let it burn. It felt like hot cider on the coldest day, warm and intoxicating, settling like a hot weight in his belly.

“We need to keep moving,” he said, and Dick nodded and looked away, his face careful and controlled and wiped clean of any expression. And that- would not do.

“You’re not the only one,” he said. “Who’s had no one to talk to, I mean.”

It’s a paltry offering, especially compared to what he wants to say- _i loved you then when i barely knew what love was, you’re still the most beautiful person i’ve laid eyes on but now i know you are stubborn and bossy and sarcastic and make bad jokes to deal with the ugliness of your life, and i think i’m falling in love with you for real this time_ \- but it made Dick smile nonetheless, and that was good enough for now. There would be more time for this later, and if there wasn’t, best to leave it there.

“Come on,” Jason said, stepping forward to take the lead again, and Dick fell into place behind him so close Jason could feel the warmth of him, bright and comforting against the cold.

* * *

The plan originally had been to split up and circle around Alfred’s cottage, looking for any sign of watching by Luthor’s men. It was getting dangerously close to moonrise, and it would be nice to have at least a safe place to stay for the day, if not a chance at discussing their next move before Dick shifted back.

When they met up after the first loop around the cottage, though, Dick’s attention was turned inward towards the cottage instead of on the forest, his jaw set and eyes narrowed. Jason looked as well, and saw a horse tied on the leeward side of the cottage, snuffling miserably at the snow in search of winter-dead grass.

“They’re still here,” Dick said. “We’ve discussed it so many times, the plan has always been that if Luthor was close to finding him, Alfred and Leslie would leave, find a place even I didn’t know about so wolf-me couldn’t give them away.”

“You expected them to leave us?” Jason asked.

“I expected them to leave _me_ , yes,” Dick said. “You were supposed to be safe. We didn’t have a plan for what to do if you started to get your memories back when Luthor was around.”

He was glancing towards the horizon again, the way he did when moonrise was coming. They didn’t have time to get angry at should-haves. Jason left the treeline and set out across the clearing, Dick close behind as always. The door swung open as they approached, Alfred standing in the doorway, so he had at least been keeping watch.

“We have limited time, Master Richard, so spare the scolding, please,” he said as they came inside, the _please_ sounding less like a request than an order. Dick stood just inside the door, eyes narrowed at him.

“For now,” he agreed flatly. Clearly realizing that was the best he was going to get, Alfred ushered them into the kitchen where-

Leslie. She had her hands wrapped around a mug of tea, which she hastily dropped. She pushed up from her chair and came around the table and wrapped Jason up in a surprisingly strong hug, rough words of gratitude muffled against his coat.

“Alfred said Richard would get you free,” she said when she stepped back, her eyes alarmingly bright and wet.

Desperate for anything to distract from the potential of tears, Jason protested, “I got myself free.”

“He did,” Dick agreed. “I was all but useless.”

For a moment they stood in silence, two pairs squared off from each other. Then Leslie shook her head. “All right,” she said, breaking the tension, and pushing the other chair out and indicating for Jason to sit. “I’m sure you have some questions, and even now I don’t know how much we can tell you-”

“All of it,” Jason said, folding his arms across his chest and bracing himself where he was standing, openly defiant. “I remember everything now. Not in order, but I have all the pieces.”

Alfred and Leslie exchanged glances, but the response, when it came, was from an unexpected source.

“Not everything,” Dick said quietly, and Jason turned to him in betrayal.

“Sit, please,” Leslie said, indicating the chair again, and Jason sat down that time. Dick stayed in the doorway, probably prepared for a fast exit, and Leslie sat down opposite Jason while Alfred bustled around producing another cup of tea.

“I told you once that the key to undoing the curse on the manor was lost,” Alfred said as he handed the cup over to Jason. There was no other chair, so he stood beside Leslie. “Master Bruce did not curse you, Jason. Your memory loss was Luthor’s doing.”

Jason leaned back, then frowned- his shoulder pressed against fingers, a hand resting on the back of his chair. It was a tiny point of contact, but it helped nonetheless. “You think I’m the key.”

“Bruce hated having a lot of people around the manor,” Leslie said. “He had some daytime staff and that was it. The night Luthor came to the manor, there were only three people there.”

“Ah,” Jason said quietly. Three- Bruce, Dick, and Bruce’s new son. And Dick had been heading out the door, leaving the manor, so… “You think I saw something, and Luthor tried to block my memories so I wouldn’t know what I saw.”

“We think he tried to curse me,” Dick said. “You’d only been at the manor a year, and when he didn’t start tearing the nearby villages apart looking for a boy your age, we realized he didn’t know Bruce took another child in. So he’s spent this whole time thinking he was looking for a wolf who had forgotten it was once human, and you were safe.”

Playing the fox, Dick had said once, what felt like forever ago but was really just a matter of days. Jason leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table and burying his face in his hands. Two curses, and a manor full of ghosts, and a dam of agony holding his memories at bay, and stolen powers- all of it shifted around, trying to find their places,

“My going to the manor started this,” he said. “So if I go back there, I might be able to remember the rest.”

“I’m going too,” Dick said instantly.

“You’ll be a wolf in a few minutes,” Jason pointed out, lifting his head just enough to stare at him out of the corner of one eye. Dick smiled.

“Pretty sure I’m going with no matter where you go,” he said, and- in addition to what they had said to each other earlier, alone in the forest, Jason found himself flushing and looking away.

“Luthor will be expecting that,” Alfred pointed out. “He was watching it yesterday.”

“So we’ll deal with him.” Bravado was easy, with Luthor miles away. He remembered the kitchen in Leslie’s house, the grip he had no chance of fighting on his throat, and pushed away the urge to shudder and rub at his neck. “That pendant he wears seems to be important. It might be part of how he stole Bruce’s powers. If we can get it away from him-” He glanced back again. “Is that a simple enough idea for wolf-you? _Get pendant_?”

“I don’t know,” Dick said evenly, his eyes alight with the challenge. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

“The manor won’t let most people in,” Leslie said. “Even I can’t get in, and Bruce has known me his whole life. If you make it through the doors, Luthor won’t be able to follow you.”

She paused, and Jason looked at her- but then the fingers pressing against the back of his shoulder vanished, and there was the sound of hurried footsteps and the front door slamming open. Jason stood, following some mindless urge to somehow help, but Alfred caught his eye and shook his head.

“Leave it be,” he said gently. “There’s nothing you can do for him now.”

“Alfred,” Leslie said, “will you go make sure he doesn’t eat the horse? Pembroke will be wanting it back in one piece.”

Alfred stood and looked between her and Jason for a moment, then politely excused himself and went outside. Jason sat back down and looked across the table at Leslie.

“So what was your part in all of this?” he asked quietly.

“Bruce was a difficult birth. Thomas Wayne hired me on to tend to Martha afterwards, and once she recovered, there was enough work here to keep me around. I watched Bruce grow up. I knew the family, but I wasn’t really part of it. So when Alfred showed up on my doorstep with you, not a memory left in your head, and said Bruce had been attacked and something bad had happened, and he needed someone to look after you.” She looked at him again, her expression shrewd. “You were already wearing that coat. Bruce got it for you, just before everything happened. I let you keep it and grow into it. Alfred and I both hoped the curse would wear off, and you’d remember on your own time. Richard was the one who fought to tell you.” She sighed. “Every time you came home late, every time you were out in that forest for hours longer than you’d said you would be, I was waiting for you to come home and start yelling at me, tell me you’d ran into a blue-eyed boy in the woods and he’d told you everything.”

Jason thought about arguing, yelling at her now, pointing out that hiding it from him had only put all of them in danger- but there was nothing to be gained from it right then. Dick was right. The scolding could wait.

“Thank you for looking after me,” he said, and she looked away.

“This has to be done, I know,” she said. “Luthor’s the reason everything is getting so bad. He knocked everything out of balance, that’s why the winters are getting harder, that’s why everyone is suffering. He’s killing everyone in this land and he doesn’t care.” She looked up at Jason again. “I just wish it didn’t come to this. We were trying to keep you out of danger, not drop you straight into the middle of it.”

“I know.” He reached across the table and placed his hand over hers on the mug, and she smiled at them, at him. Then she shook it off, restoring her usual brusqueness with a deep, cleansing breath.

“You should eat something before you go,” she said.

“I will.” Alfred’s stocked kitchen would see to that- did he get all that from the manor? Were there traders who came to him but not to the village? Was it magic somehow? Jason didn’t know and didn’t have time to ask. “But one more thing, before I get ready to go.”

She looked at him, eyebrows raised, and he flashed her his most charming smile.

“Can I borrow your horse?”

* * *

The journey to the manor was trickier with four legs instead of two. The horse, a farm horse that was familiar with pulling wagons and tilling soil, did not care for crunchy snow underfoot, or darkness and grabbing tree branches around it, and was an improvement mostly in that it took the pressure of walking off Jason’s knee. He dismounted as soon as he saw the manor walls looming up through the trees and left it to wander. It would hopefully find its own way home.

He stood in the trees looking up the path to the gate, and sighed, then looked down to his left.

The wolf stood beside him, furry shoulder pressed against his hip. He had followed, as Dick predicted, just close enough to keep the horse nervy and aware of his presence. His ears were pricked up, the muscles of the shoulder pressed against Jason tense in preparation, and he was staring unswervingly at something beyond the gate.

“I don’t see any guards,” Jason said quietly. More importantly, he didn’t see a lot of extra footprints in the snow. Just his, coming and going, and one other set of tracks leading in but not out. Apparently this was something Luthor intended to handle himself.

Well. At least he knew what was waiting for them.

“Remember, get pendant,” Jason said to the wolf, who looked up at him with steady blue eyes but gave no sign of understanding.

The gate was propped open enough for a person to slide through, so Jason did, and stopped just on the other side, blocking the wolf’s entry with his body- it would be nice to hold that one in reserve. He followed the single like of tracks up the garden path and blinked- they stopped halfway up to the manor, just disappeared without a trace, no turning away or doubling back. And the air looked strange near where the tracks ended, thin and wavery like heat baking off brick in the summer-

He blinked and looked again, and Luthor’s outline sharpened into view, the rest of him filling in rapidly. So he could bend light to be nearly invisible, wonderful.

“I didn’t know he took in another boy,” Luthor said conversationally. His hood was down and he was smiling, a deeply unpleasant expression. His hands were loose and empty by his sides, but the pendant was a swirling well of darkness. “I spent this whole time looking for the other one, and you were in that village all along.”

The wolf was growling and trying to press his nose in around Jason’s hip. Jason braced himself against the push. “I don’t suppose asking nicely will accomplish anything,” he said.

For a moment he thought Luthor would genuinely try to explain, to justify this. Then the man shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose it will,” he said, and dragged one hand up, the shadows of the garden pulling up around him and leaping forward-

Jason stepped aside, and the wolf lunged.

Luthor had been expecting retaliation from a human. The blow, aimed chest-high on a tall man, went right over the wolf’s head. Luthor jerked back in surprise, brought his other hand up and shimmering silver strands pulled downward- moonlight- and knitted themselves into a rough net before him, and the wolf hit it and rebounded. He broke away with a snarl, loping away from Luthor, who turned to keep track of him.

The shadows of the garden clung to Jason’s legs like wet heavy snow, resisting him as he moved through them. But Luthor had already shown his weakness- he was not born to this power, and did not use it as naturally as breathing, as Bruce had. One target could be easily overwhelmed, but they had split his attention two ways, and Luthor was tracking the greater threat at the peril of completely ignoring the other one.

He saw it coming at the last second, and the knife Jason had taken sliced harmlessly through his cloak and hood instead, sharp enough to cut through the fabric with a mere whisper of contact. He gestured again, and Jason, half-turned to face him and momentum carrying him past Luthor, was driven down to his knees, knife falling as that intangible hold clamped around his throat again. Darkness gathered all around him this time, not content with overwhelming him but intending to destroy him, and Luthor pressed in one step, two-

And then the shadows parted, and Jason could see Luthor’s expression of shock. He snapped his wrist and darkness surged, but it flared as well, splashing from his fingers like spilled water, all finesse gone, barely holding form.

The wolf slithered like a shadow himself, darting away from Luthor’s feet and circling wide to come to Jason’s side. Jason dug one hand into the thick fur between his shoulders to help himself stand, and held the other under the wolf’s mouth, and the wolf dropped the pendant into his palm. The leather thong dangled from his fist, neatly severed where the knife had cut through it.

So _get pendant_ had been a simple enough idea for him after all.

Luthor was staring at the pendant, a sneer on his face. He did not look like a man who had just lost his stolen magic, and sure enough, a moment of focus had moonlight swirling in one hand and shadows in the other.

“And what was that meant to accomplish?” he asked.

Jason curled his fingers around the pendant and pressed his fist tight against his body. The wolf was snarling, head down and hackles up, and moving away from Jason, splitting Luthor’s attention between them again. There was no way Jason was going to convince the wolf to go into the manor with him, but leaving him out there would mean leaving him to face off against Luthor alone- but he couldn’t risk Luthor getting the pendant back either-

The wolf lunged, and Luthor swept him back with a wide ragged sweep of shadows that was disintegrating even as the wolf leapt back away from it. Luthor tried to summon up more but the wolf darted in, and blood splashed across moonlit snow as teeth closed around Luthor’s calf. Luthor yelled and shoved with both hands, and the wolf yelped and fell away, blown back and scrambling to get purchase.

Jason darted in, low to the ground and under the counterblow of lacework moonlight that he probably could have brushed aside with one hand, and grabbed the knife he had dropped. Luthor pivoted on one foot and reached for him, darkness on his fingertips, and Jason reversed his hold on the knife and swept it up and laid Luthor’s palm open to the bone.

And then the same tattered arch of shadows caught him across the chest and shoved him backwards. He slid and fell and cracked the back of his head on something hard and unforgiving and oddly raised from the ground-

He looked back, when the colors stopped blooming in his vision and the pain spiking in his skull softened enough for him to move his head. He had landed on the first step up to the manor’s porch.

There was a snarl, and Jason looked back in time to see the wolf fall back again, fresh blood on his muzzle. Luthor was still standing but hunched forward, wounded hand cradled protectively close.

“That is _enough_!” he roared, and snapped both hands outward, and the world fell into darkness.

Jason grabbed at the stair behind him, needing its solid presence. The wolf yelped, but Jason couldn’t see him, couldn’t see Luthor, couldn’t see anything but blackness. Even when he held a hand directly in front of his face, Jason couldn’t see it.

There were footsteps crunching in the snow, approaching him. Jason pushed back and up, staggering blindly on the stairs, caught his foot on the next step up and fell to one knee.

There was a cold breath on the back of his neck, a quiet whispering behind him. Jason looked, and-

In the darkness stood a doorway, the manor beyond it. It was night-dark inside but practically glowed in the unnatural blackness Luthor had summoned. Luthor’s stolen power ended there, Bruce’s protective curse holding strong against it.

He had put the pendant in his pocket before he’d gone for the knife. He took it out now, aimed, and threw. It cleared the doorway and landed on the ground in the foyer, beyond Luthor’s reach.

“I will be having that back,” Luthor said from terribly close by. Jason rolled back over to look at him and had to look away again- he was cast from moonlight, every bit of him pale silver like a ghost, and in the utter darkness he burned. He reached forward with one hand, and the darkness around Jason pulled tight like it was a living thing, like he was being swallowed alive.

Jason sneered, defiant to the end. “Make me,” he ordered, and Luthor stepped forward again and gestured and the darkness pushed him up, pushed him towards Luthor even as it squeezed the last of his breath from him-

The knife went into Luthor’s chest, and Luthor grunted in mute surprise, even as the darkness fell away and reality bled back in. Jason let go of the knife and fell away as Luthor staggered back and- faded?

Faded, the silver burning away like mist in the morning as the sun rose, like moonlight shining in the day. The real Luthor, underneath, wrapped both hands around the knife and pulled it free, and moonlight spilled after it- but he was not wounded himself.

Jason didn’t wait to see what Luthor would do next. He scrambled up and fell back again, coughing and aching, got up again and staggered to the manor door.

One last look at the garden and a silent, fierce apology to Dick- _don’t you dare die, not now, not like this_ \- and he went through the doorway and into the manor beyond.


	7. Chapter 7

It was breathtakingly cold.

It was icy and shifting and shimmering, like moonlight on snow. Jason stepped forward and scooped the pendant up, then stood and waited. And now that he had context for it, he could place the memories as they swirled around him.

A flash-

_a party, something important to the waynes, alfred with a serving tray, jason sneaking past to try and avoid the fingers reaching to pinch his cheeks_

\- and a woman swung past in a dazzling, glittering dress, and Jason swiped a hand through her to shatter her image. He closed his eyes and tried to remember, tried to drag the memory free of the fog still clutching at it.

_fire, and moonlight, and dick’s voice echoing in a yell, glass like ice pressed against skin as he huddled away from the arguing_

The party scattered and Luthor appeared, scaring Jason badly for a moment before he registered that this Luthor was as pale and translucent as all the other ghosts. He stopped and gave orders to a handful of men, who spread out into the manor, then turned and swept up the grand stairs. Jason followed.

_bare feet on carpet, scuffling down the hallway, marveling at the feel of it- soft like new spring grass against his soles_

The stairs were worn, rotted through in some places. Jason went up them carefully, both hands on the railing, and he had done this a thousand times before. Dick flew down these stairs like his feet never touched the floor but Jason was scared of them, scared of the polished wood and the steep edges.

At the top of the stairs, a hallway on either hand and a room before him. He went down the hallway with the plush carpet- grey now with dust, flattened and rough. The ghost of Luthor had disappeared, and reappeared behind him, and Jason did not like the look on his face.

_the smell of paper and ink, the sound of a pen scratching, old leather groaning, glass like ice against skin and sunlight slanting across his face_

The end of the hallway, to the left. He wanted to turn right instead, and humored the urge long enough to check- the door opened and he saw shelves, paintings and a globe in the corner, and so many books, so so many. The library. His feet took him in, a learned instinct.

Behind him, Ghost Luthor carried on down the hallway and stopped at the door to the left, leaning against the doorframe and watching, the door left sitting open by a handspan. Jason came out of the library and followed, coming to the door- closed now, firmly- and hesitated.

_glass like ice against skin, and a book in his lap, and a flimsy fabric wall to his right, and voices raised in yelling- dick deeply wounded and furious for it, bruce oblivious- how could bruce not see that, how could dick yell at a man who had given him the best possible life, how could they know each other so well and still speak such different languages_

The doorknob was slippery with dust under his hand, and turned with a tired creak. He pushed the door open gently. 

Directly across from him was a window, the curtain pulled away just enough to see the ledge wide enough to seat a small boy between the curtain and the window itself, provided the boy was willing to press against the glass. It would be cold in the winter, like ice against his skin.

If he walked over and pulled the curtain all the way, would he see himself, hiding there?

_a voice yelled something_

a voice yelled something, powerful enough to press against his skin even in hiding, searing like sunlight, like a hot spring day after a chilly night. Jason snapped around and saw Ghost Luthor, and something in his hand, and then there was light-

\- so much _light_ -

\- a noise of pain, a small gasp as a young boy tucked tighter into his weak hiding spot-

Jason looked away from Ghost Luthor, his eyes streaming with remembered brightness, and saw Bruce.

He was sitting at his desk, as he had been all those years ago, when Jason snuck in to climb into his window and read, when Dick swept in and then out an argument later, when Luthor kicked the door open and wielded sunlight like a weapon. He was slumped over onto the desk, face down, one arm stretched ahead of himself like he had tried to grab something, one tucked close to his head like he had tried to defend himself.

_“was I just not good enough? Have I ever been? I’m sorry if I’m not the son you wanted, Bruce, but you barely had the decency to change the bed linens before you gave him everything of mine-”_

Dick and Luthor both stood over Bruce, staring him down. No Ghost Bruce answered either of them. The real one did not move, and had not for a while. His hair was threaded with grey at the temples and matted with cobwebs. An inkwell had been knocked over on his desk, and the fingers of his outstretched hand were black.

Ghost Dick looked gutted in response to whatever Bruce had said, and Jason’s heart twisted. So hard now, seeing him in pain, when Ghost Jason hiding in the window well was wishing he would shut up and leave, since he was so determined to be ungrateful.

“You can yell at him later, but right now you’re in the way,” Jason said to him, and- gently, sadly- waved a hand through him to send him away.

Ghost Luthor stood alone now, and smiled.

_“from kent, where else,” _an answer to a question there was no Ghost Bruce to ask. He removed something from his belt- a dagger, wrapped in some sort of oily cloth, which he carefully peeled off. Each piece removed flooded the room with more light, until he was holding pure sunlight in his hand.__

__Jason came around the desk, careful to give Ghost Luthor a wide berth, and reached out. One moment to breathe, two- then he put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder._ _

__Warm with life, shifting subtly with the deep steady breathing of sleep._ _

__Jason caught him with both hands and pushed him back so he was leaning back in the chair instead of falling forward onto the desk. His face was pale, lined with a few more wrinkles than Jason remembered- although Bruce’s face was the least clear memory of the lot, the only one not circulating these halls._ _

__Rising from his chest, directly over his heart, the hilt of a dagger. Sunlight bled around the edges of the wound._ _

__Jason put Luthor’s pendant down on the desk, close enough for him to see if it was doing anything without having to turn his head and look away from Bruce. He took the dagger by the hilt, tentative at first, then a solid grip. He applied a hair of pressure, then a bit more, then put his free hand on Bruce’s shoulder and braced himself to pull- then let go and jerked away, swearing and shaking his hand out. The whole dagger burned, the hilt as hot as a forge. Bruce’s body bowed towards the pressure, leaning into the pull, his face contorting into an expression of pain as sunlight crawled like fire through his veins, making them glow briefly under his skin, before he settled back again._ _

__Right, of course that wasn’t it. Dick would have done it himself if it were that easy. Jason wiped his burned hand on his coat as he turned away, looking to see if Ghost Luthor had some sort of special protection on his hand-_ _

__Ghost Luthor was gone, but Jason had turned just in time to see a small ghostly face peek at him over the edge of the desk before it ducked away. A moment later, the curtain stirred._ _

__He headed over to the window, pulled the curtain away. A boy sat there with a book in his lap, his side pressed to the window- he was wearing shortsleeves, his arm must have been cold against the glass-_ _

__“You were here,” Jason said, turning back to look at Bruce._ _

__Yes- he liked to be in the same room as Bruce, liked knowing where he was and listening to the sound of someone else existing. Bruce knew he liked to sit in the window well and had taken the sash off the curtain, giving Jason a safe place to hide when he felt it necessary, and that day-_ _

___dick yelling, slamming the door open, sweeping in with poisonous accusations and fierce eyes, and jason tweaked the curtain closed before that gaze could land on him, tucked himself up small and pressed his fingers against the book’s spine and wished for dick to just go away, go away, go away_ _ _

__“If you were there for Dick, you were there for Luthor,” Jason told the boy. “So show me how he did it.”_ _

___glass like ice against skin, a curtain pulled shut, a book heavy in his lap_ _ _

__“No,” Jason snapped, irritated, and paced away for a moment, staring uselessly around the room. Then he came back over and knelt down, looking at the boy in the window, who looked back at him with eyes full of mistrust. “What did you hear, then?” he asked quietly. “Someone very important is out there dying for you. We can do this. Show me.”_ _

__The boy looked at him, judged him- then nodded._ _

___dick wounded, quiet with resignation, bruce cold and dismissive. dick leaving, the door swinging almost closed behind him, quiet. silence, a heavy sigh, a question in a voice he cannot hear properly-_ _ _

___\- the door slammed open, and light so bright it burned his eyes, a noise of pain. voices, gloating- a threat,_ be smart wayne your son is here how long do you think he can hide from me _\- forever, bruce said with a sneer__ _

___the boy in the window tucked down tighter, book pressed so tight against him the edges of the pages were cutting into his fingertips, hardly daring to breathe- this was so much worse than dick yelling, he wanted to charge out and tackle this light-wielding stranger but couldn’t move- darkness like shackles at his feet, over his shoulders, holding against the light, holding him in place, bruce protecting him as he protected dick because if he moved now the man would know, would kill him_ _ _

___the man spoke, a short droning chant_ _ _

___a scream, and the darkness holding him shattered, and the light was swallowed up and the world was grey_ _ _

___he was frozen, he listened to a voice sneering in victory, footsteps on carpet and the door slamming shut_ _ _

___he dropped the book and ran, slid out the door and down the hallway- there was movement in the library, the hooded man snapping around, too slow to see him he was past the door- words on his heels, a curse, a spell_ _ _

___down the hallway but it was fading now, the memory wearing thin_ _ _

___down the stairs and it was happening to someone else_ _ _

___out the doors he had never seen before_ _ _

___he- he was in a forest? and there were people behind him, yelling, and he ran because yelling people never meant well, and he didn’t even know his name_ _ _

___somewhere nearby, with a lonely grief-stricken voice, a wolf howled_ _ _

__Jason Todd remembered, for the first time in twelve years._ _

__He opened his eyes to look. The boy in the window was gone- he was running, running away from the yelling men and the howling wolf, running through the woods where he would be found by Alfred, and sent away to a fake life of safe anonymity in the village, with the overlarge red-hooded coat Bruce had gotten for him weeks previous wrapped tight around him._ _

__Jason moved back over to Bruce and looked down at him, then picked up the pendant and placed it on Bruce’s chest close to the dagger, then put a hand on the hilt of the knife again._ _

__“Solaris,” he said, and the knife glowed around his fingers. “Lunaris.” The moon half of the pendant began to emit its darkness, eating the light from the dagger. “Matrimus.” The dagger shifted an inch or two. “Aeternis.”_ _

__The dagger pulled free, spilling sunlight into the dark grey room, and Bruce Wayne stirred._ _

* * *

__He came down the stairs and went through the main doors, and there was no sign of Luthor in the garden. He wondered idly if the man was trying to enter the manor despite the curse- but dismissed the thought and turned away, searching the garden for a hulking form of dark fur. He was getting worried- getting properly scared- when there was a groaning noise from some overgrown hedges that had swallowed the path they once tastefully bordered. Jason darted over to them and waded through them and pushed their grabbing branches aside to crouch down in the middle._ _

__Dick was lying on his side on the stone path, dead leaves and snow crunching under him as he moved. Blood was smeared on his face, his neck, his hands. But he was moving, and blinking, and wonderfully _human_ , and the most beautiful thing Jason had ever seen._ _

__Jason shrugged out of his coat and swung it around Dick’s shoulders as he sat up, shivering and wide-eyed. He clutched at it and pulled it tight around him and stared above them as Jason patiently checked the bloody spots for injuries._ _

__“Moonlight,” he whispered, and Jason glanced up, then shifted so Dick could see the wedge of silver sitting low on the horizon. It had been years since Dick had existed outside of a twilight world, living for those few minutes, few hours, of the threshold between sunset and moonrise, moonset and sunrise._ _

__“But that means,” Dick said, when Jason caught a hand under his arm and helped him upright._ _

__“Where’s Luthor?” Jason asked, not unkindly, but needing Dick to focus._ _

__Dick looked blankly at him for a moment, then awareness finally clicked into place, and he looked around. His gaze went sharp after a second, and Jason turned to face the threat, holding out one arm so Dick wouldn’t try to move in front of him._ _

__Luthor emerged from nothing, as he had only a few minutes ago, but this time Jason could see he was struggling. Moonlight gathered on his fingertips like silver smoke, but that was all he could summon, and no shadows moved at all._ _

__“He’s losing his power,” Dick said quietly, then added with vicious satisfaction, “and he won’t be able to use Clark’s power until the sun comes up.”_ _

__Well, that made things easy, didn’t it?_ _

__“You-” Luthor began, nearly incoherent with fury._ _

__Jason didn’t wait to hear it. He strode across the garden, and Luthor brought up both hands, and moonlight drifted like fog between them, and Luthor finally, _finally_ , realized how much trouble he was in. Jason got one good look of the expression on his face, wide-eyed and wild, as the moon-fog parted between them-_ _

__Then Jason punched him, hard, and Luthor dropped like a sack of bricks, fetching himself a nice crack on the back of the head on the paved path behind him as he did so._ _

__The garden was silent, light and shadows all finally returning to their proper positions. Jason shook his hand out and looked to where Dick had come up to stand beside him._ _

__“Not how you wanted it to end?” he asked, trying to interpret the look on Dick’s face. Not one of victory, not entirely._ _

__“I don’t know,” Dick admitted, and sighed heavily, collapsing in on himself like some long-held tension had finally relaxed. He leaned into Jason a little bit, and after Jason didn’t move away, leaned harder. “He still has Clark’s powers. We’ll need to figure out how to isolate him and keep him away from any sunlight by dawn.”_ _

__“I will handle that,” a new voice said behind them._ _

__They both startled badly, springing apart and wheeling around to face the new threat- and Bruce Wayne stood behind them and watched them with a look of bemusement. He wore only a long-sleeved shirt and trousers, both black, but the cold did not seem to touch him._ _

__The tension was back in Dick’s frame, his entire body coiled tight like he was awaiting a blow. “Bruce,” he said, devastated, and Bruce looked at him and softened just a little, just enough. He took the last few steps between them and put a hand on Dick’s shoulder, barely touching him before Dick collapsed against him with a wounded sound. Bruce wrapped both arms around his son and held him close as Dick alternated between silent sobs and a rambling admission of years’ worth of grief and guilt._ _

__Jason stood awkwardly aside, not quite watching. He had not remembered Bruce to grieve his loss, and even if he had, he’d only had a year with the man, and a good relationship with him that whole time. Dick deserved this moment for himself with no intrusions._ _

__Bruce made soft noises of acknowledgement and reassurance the whole time, and when Dick seemed to be winding down, he stepped back and put his hands on his son’s shoulders. Dick’s face was stark white and dry as bone in the moonlight, but judging how Bruce reached up with a thumb to wipe something off his cheek, Jason thought this particular patch of moonlight might be hiding a few things._ _

__“We can discuss this later,” Bruce said, gentle but stern, prioritized. He looked at Jason as he said it, and Jason wanted to look away._ _

__“Right. Luthor.” Dick regained his composure remarkably fast, wiping at his dry cheeks himself and stepping away from Bruce to look at the unconscious man behind him._ _

__“You two should go inside and get some rest,” Bruce said._ _

__“No, I’ll help,” Dick said immediately. “I can- I’ll go get Alfred.”_ _

__Bruce didn’t react for a moment, simply closed his eyes- a man receiving a gift he knew he had no right to ask for. He had thought Alfred dead or gone. But then he straightened up again even as Dick moved away, full of frantic energy that would burn out and leave him to collapse halfway there. “Dick,” he called._ _

__“I’ll get him,” Jason said, and those dark eyes focused on him. How strange must it look to him, that two boys who could barely stand to be in the same room had grown overnight into men who took obvious comfort from each other’s presence. “I’ll get Alfred too, I have a horse out there if it hasn’t wandered off. Can you handle that and Dick both?” He nodded towards Luthor._ _

__Bruce didn’t need the dramatic gestures Luthor had favored- a single quirk of an eyebrow, and darkness rippled and stirred like oil on water, lifting Luthor up and carrying him effortlessly towards the manor. Jason smirked. “I should be back by dawn,” he said, and moved away, Bruce standing firmly in his spot and clearly not intending to move until Dick came back._ _

__Dick had made it outside the gate and was trying to make friends with the horse- trying and failing, smelling like wolf and blood as he did. Jason came over to him and tugged on the red hood on his back._ _

__“I need this,” he said, and- the only argument Dick wouldn’t dig his heels in at- “Bruce needs you.”_ _

__Dick looked at him for a long moment, then smiled, a tired and crooked thing that was the most real smile Jason had ever seen from him. “He absolutely did not say that,” he said, but he was taking the coat off anyways and holding it out._ _

__Jason took the coat and pulled it on. “Go home, Dick,” he said gently, and Dick sighed before stepping away._ _

__He waited until Dick was back inside the gate before he turned to the horse, whispering sweet nonsense to steady it as he approached until he could gather up its reins. He mounted and turned the horse towards the cottage in the woods, and set off to tell Alfred the good news._ _

* * *

__For all that the Dick of a dozen years ago had accused Bruce of giving everything that was his to Jason, they actually had different rooms- there were half a dozen to choose from, after all. Jason woke in the bed that he had chosen all those years ago, and luxuriated under the heavy covers and the sunlight slanting warmly across the room for a good while before rising to face whatever this day, uncharted and new, might bring._ _

__The manor had transformed with the lifting of the curse. Cobwebs, broken furniture and windows, torn curtains had all been put to rights as if it had never happened. The caved-in roof had returned to its proper place by the time Jason had made it back to the manor with Alfred in tow, and he had spent a good few minutes watching as the carriage house picked itself up and rebuilt itself. Even the outer walls had lost their grungy grey color, and the sandy stone front shone in the dawnlight like it had been freshly washed. Jason wandered into a hallway brightly lit by sunshine, the carpet once again soft and springy under his feet._ _

__Alfred was in the kitchen, the first sign of life Jason stumbled upon, bustling around and fussing over a steaming pot. Jason watched him in silence for a long minute- reveling in the memories; how many times had he assisted Alfred in baking dessert, the cook banished from her own kitchen while Alfred showed Jason how to measure sugar and mix a stiff dough?- until he must have made a noise, for Alfred tensed and turned around quickly. He relaxed immediately, of course, but it was like sand grit against his teeth. Twelve years was a long time, and things had changed._ _

__“Ah, Master Jason,” Alfred said in greeting._ _

__“Don’t _Master Jason_ me, please,” Jason said._ _

__“Of course not, Master Jason,” Alfred said, but he said it with a smile, and Jason let it be. “The cook is long gone, I’m afraid, moved years ago to somewhere less dramatic, and it will take time for me to acquire an appropriate staff. Until then, we shall simply have to manage ourselves.”_ _

__“You know, I lived in this manor for barely a year, and I was responsible for myself before and since,” Jason pointed out. “I think I can survive without servants.”_ _

__Alfred gave him a cool look. “You and Master Bruce both think that, sir,” he said, and it was clearly a condemnation._ _

__Jason looked around the kitchen, at the plate on the table with two plates placed as if prepared for food. Two, not three. “Where’s Dick?”_ _

__Alfred stopped stirring the pot’s contents and looked away, towards the front gate and the forest beyond. “The spell is only half-broken,” he said. “I will go down to the cottage to meet him come sunset.”_ _

__“What?” Jason straightened up from the doorframe he had been leaning against and came into the kitchen properly. “But we beat Luthor, Bruce got his power back. Why didn’t Bruce just lift the spell?”_ _

__“You would be better served asking him that,” Alfred said. “There is a staircase behind the grand clock in the hall behind the main stairs. Master Bruce is down in the cave.”_ _

__Jason lingered another few minutes, but it was clear Alfred was done talking about any of that, and instead spoke about how Luthor’s men had all fled the village, and Leslie was returned there to make sure no one got any ideas about seizing power that was not theirs to take, and how Luthor’s sudden abdication of power and position would likely upend the entire land, and Jason eventually had to make his excuses and flee._ _

__He followed Alfred’s directions and found the stairs behind the clock as promised. There was no bannister to hold onto, and the stairs were stone and slick even when dry, so he took it slowly and carefully, and watched as something bright as the sun flared up and died out repeatedly, its light shining throughout the cave and sending what few bats remained on the ceiling into shrieking fits._ _

__Bruce was standing near the source of the light, reading the top sheet in a thick sheaf of paper by the pulsing light. He looked up when Jason approached, but said nothing when Jason passed him by without comment. Beyond him was a door, heavy wood and barred with iron and sealed with four locks. The light, bright like sunlight, shone through the barred window at eye-height, and Jason stepped over to look through when it faded again._ _

__Luthor was in the cell, kneeling, glowing. Jason turned away just in time to avoid being blinded by the next flash._ _

__Bruce tipped his head, and Jason followed him as they moved well out of Luthor’s earshot, stopping at the foot of the stairs. For a long moment they just stood there, looking each other over in the light from upstairs, in the light from Luthor. Bruce was pale- Bruce was always pale, resentful of sunshine and preferring to leave the manor only at night- and gaunt and seemed almost small. Maybe it was just because Jason was grown now, a big man in his own right, so Bruce didn’t seem so colossal by comparison. He wore the twelve years he had slept on his face, lines carved where there had previously been smooth skin, grey threading through black at his temples, crow’s feet pinching at the corners of his eyes._ _

__Jason could only imagine the differences Bruce was seeing in him. Twelve years made quite the difference when it literally doubled your age._ _

__“I didn’t mean for this to fall to you,” Bruce said finally. He looked very old and very tired. Jason supposed it would be a while before he found peace with what had happened, how much his world had changed- not only how much it had changed, but how fast, literally overnight by his reckoning._ _

__“You didn’t have much choice,” Jason said._ _

__Bruce didn’t respond to that, just reached out and put a hand on Jason’s shoulder. It felt as heavy and strong as Jason remembered. “I am proud of you, Jason.”_ _

__Something twisted in his stomach at that, hot and fierce, and Jason looked away, unable to hold Bruce’s gaze. He watched the cave light up again. “He still has his sunlight power,” he pointed out._ _

__Bruce, thankfully, reeled the emotion of the moment back in and dropped his hand from Jason’s shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, had that cool, unaffected tone he used when explaining something he thought the listener already ought know. “He must have used the same sealing spell on Clark.”_ _

__Jason had dropped the sunlight dagger after he’d pulled it free from Bruce’s chest, and then had had to go outside to deal with Luthor. He hadn’t seen it since, and it wasn’t an easy thing to hide. He tried to imagine a moonlight dagger- perhaps a night dagger, sucking light out of the air, dimming rooms, dampening flames- tried to imagine someone who burned gold like the sun enchanted to sleep as Bruce had been, dulled and dusty and tarnished._ _

__“You have the pendant and the spell to undo the seal,” Jason said. “And Alfred told me your spell on Dick is only half-broken, and he’s still a wolf during daytime.”_ _

__Bruce looked briefly pained. “I overreached, on my spell to protect Dick,” he admitted. “Only my counterpart has the power to reverse it entirely.”_ _

__They both looked back into the cave, towards the flashes- high unlikely that Luthor would volunteer for such a thing. So now there were two reasons for rescuing Clark._ _

__“Jason,” Bruce said, his tone gentled like he was speaking to a scared child, “about you and Dick-”_ _

__“They told you about the memory block, right?” Jason asked. “We barely knew each other before, and then this happened…”_ _

__“I’m not judging you,” Bruce said calmly. “I am in no position to judge. I only wanted to say thank you, for looking out for each other.”_ _

__Jason nodded and looked away, trying to hide his blush and having the unsettling feeling that Bruce could see it perfectly even in the dark cave. Now that he had both memories and maturity by which to gauge them, he could see it- three dark heads put together, whispers and laughter and smiles, three bodies standing far closer together than they should. So many scandals, they must have started, and cared not a whit for any of it. No position to judge, indeed._ _

__“Alfred’s preparing food,” he said. “Are you coming upstairs, or does Luthor need constant minding?”_ _

__“For now, yes. He will weaken the longer he goes without seeing sunlight, but for now he could generate enough heat to melt the locks, if he’s willing to burn himself.”_ _

__Jason watched the next few flashes, then looked at Bruce again. Time to start building bridges, he supposed. “I’ll see if I can sneak something down for you,” he offered._ _

__“Thank you,” Bruce said, his tone implying the words were about more than just the food. Jason moved past him, and paused halfway up the stairs to look back down on him, standing alone, reading papers in the dark. He seared the image onto his mind, his best memory of Bruce Wayne yet- alive and awake and whole- then turned and went up the rest of the stairs and back into the world of daylight._ _

* * *

__The wolf came into the clearing around Alfred’s cottage a few minutes before sunset. He stopped at the sight of Jason at the table, stared steadily with his blue eyes for a long minute before he turned to face westward and sat down to watch the sunset._ _

__When it was over, Dick came over and sat down at the tea table, checking his chair carefully for snow even though Jason had thoroughly cleaned off both chairs and the table itself. “Did Alfred take the day off?”_ _

__Jason pushed over one of the two cups on the table. Hard cider, because after everything, they deserved it. “I told him I’d wait here for you,” he said. “Wasn’t fair to send an old man out in the cold.”_ _

__“Mm-hm.” Dick took a sip of cider, watching Jason with a thoroughly unimpressed gaze._ _

__“I also just needed to get out of there for a while,” Jason admitted, and Dick smiled. “So did you work things out Bruce?” he asked, knowing it was a sucker punch. The two of them had talked after putting Luthor in the cave, that much was obvious- there was something raw about both of them, both moving like they were hiding mortal injuries._ _

__“You first,” Dick said, and Jason grunted. He should have seen that coming. On the other hand, he owed Dick a fair answer._ _

__“Not yet, but we’re getting there,” Jason said, and Dick raised his glass to that. They shared the silence in comfort for a few minutes, drinking and watching the forest around them, for once not glancing at the sky to watch for moonrise. Finally Dick spoke._ _

__“He made a bad assumption, I didn’t listen when he tried to explain himself, and neither of us are good at talking about things that actually matter,” he said._ _

__Such a paltry thing to lose so much time to. Jason kept his mouth shut, knowing his input would not help the matter at all. With any luck, over the course of setting their misalignments aright, Bruce would convince Dick to let go of that self-blame._ _

__“So in the spirit of talking about things that matter in order to not completely destroy yet another relationship,” Dick said wryly, and looked at Jason. “Are we good? Or are we going to go back to how it was, do you think?”_ _

__Jason stared into his cider, now gone cold, and thought about a wolf howling on the edge of the forest near the village, long before he knew what it meant. That wolf had been following him for a lot longer than Dick had admitted._ _

__This had all started because of that wolf, which Jason had caught a single glimpse of, and everything else fell into motion around it._ _

__“There are more important things in my life than Bruce’s approval, how about you?” he said, and looked up at Dick questioningly. He was met with a fierce, fond expression._ _

__“Something else might have come up recently,” he agreed._ _

__There was another silence, then Dick tapped his glass against the table and said in a conversational tone, “We really should do this before moonrise, Bruce has already tacitly given his approval but I don’t think he would care to actually watch-” and Jason rose out of his chair as Dick was speaking and circled the table and took a handful of Dick’s shirt and pulled him up and flush against him._ _

__It was Dick who went the last inch, Jason hesitating just enough to be sure, to give him a chance to say no- Dick took his coat lapels and pulled him in and laughed, bright and happy, before finally leaning in and kissing him. Jason leaned into him and kissed back, threading his fingers through Dick’s soft hair and holding him tight as Dick melted into him._ _

__They broke apart only when Dick shivered, hard, and Jason wrapped his arms around him more for warmth than for holding him. Dick ducked his head and blew out an irritated breath._ _

__“It’s so much warmer with a full coat of fur,” he grumbled. “I’m always cold anymore.”_ _

__“The fire inside probably went out already,” Jason said. “So we could stay here or go to the manor, your call.”_ _

__“Manor,” Dick said instantly. “No offense, but I never want to see this place again in my life.”_ _

__Fair enough, considering what this cottage had probably come to represent to him. “All right,” Jason said, and slid an arm off Dick’s back and took one of Dick's hands in his._ _

__“Let’s go home.”_ _


	8. Chapter 8

The spring thaw came early instead of late, after a winter that only grew milder as it went. It would be a while before things were set completely to right, but it was a start.

They prepared for the journey for weeks beforehand, discussions and planning and arguing and one blow-out fight between Dick and Bruce that had the rest of the household tiptoeing around in the silence of the aftermath- but they had learned their lesson about leaving on a bad note, it seemed, and it took less than two days before they were speaking again. It probably helped that Dick was still a wolf for the sunlit hours, and Bruce could often be seen at dawn or sunset, standing at a window and watching the garden below as if he were waiting for something.

The last of the preparations had them on the path before the gates, triple-checking saddlebags- Bruce had procured horses and hadn’t said where from, and Jason had noticed they didn’t startle at the sight of a wolf like any horses he had seen- and going over the map one last time. Jason endured the fussing, which was something of a novel experience for him, but Dick didn’t have his hunter’s patience.

“Bruce,” he finally said, interrupting the man mid-word. “Bruce. I’ve been there before. I know the route. We’ll be fine.”

“This is important, Dick,” Bruce scolded.

Thankfully Dick knew him too well to bristle at the patronization. “I know,” he said. “And you can’t go yourself because you’re the only one who can contain Luthor if he escapes, and so on, and so forth. We’ve been over this.”

“It’ll be fine,” Jason added from where he was holding his horse’s reins and waiting for the last-minute bickering to get over with. “We’ll look out for each other.”

Dick shot him a smile best described as _sappy_ , and Bruce sighed loudly.

It was only the three of them, Alfred having already said his goodbyes and electing to stay in the manor. He was the wisest of them all, Jason thought to himself, petting his horse’s broad head between its eyes as it pushed at him with its nose, investigating his pockets for potential treats. They had meant to set out as soon after nightfall as possible, since they didn’t know how quickly they would be able to cover ground during the day, but then Bruce had followed them out, and now it had been half an hour, and they were all getting cranky and bored.

“We have the pendant,” Dick said, hooking his thumb under the chain they had strung it on and tugging at it. He had been chosen to wear it, after multiple test runs with other necklaces, since him being a wolf during the day- and the pendant, along with his clothes, transformed into fur or simply gone somewhere else and only to return upon his shifting back- would make it that much harder for something to happen to it. “Jason has the spell. We’ve packed for a journey twice as long as this one will be. And you’ve told us, multiple times, that Clark has to still be alive or Luthor wouldn’t have been able to keep his powers alive too. What more do we need, Bruce?”

Jason looked over again, and it was his turn to sigh. They needed nothing more- Bruce wanted to go with, and chafed against his own restrictions that forbade him doing so. And Dick, who was just enough of a wolf even when walking around on two feet, knew it too, and was pushing for Bruce to admit it.

“We can handle this, Bruce,” Jason said, shamelessly undercutting Dick and giving him a warning shake of his head when Dick glanced at him.

Dick, thankfully, relented. “Three weeks, at the most,” he said “And you’ll know as soon as it’s done, and you can start working on figuring out what happened to Diana, and how to deal with Luthor. We’ll be fine. We survived twelve years of Luthor hunting us, we can survive a few weeks’ travel.”

Bruce stood unconvinced- but then, nothing would truly convince him. But he nodded and stepped back, finally releasing the second horse’s reins to Dick. “I’ll keep watch,” he said, and the moonlight in the clearing glowed bright as sunlight for a moment as if to reinforce his words.

Then he took another step back, turned, and strode away, apparently not one for saying goodbye. Dick and Jason watched him go, then exchanged knowing looks.

“All right,” Dick said as he stepped around the horse’s side and slipped, light as a breeze, into the saddle. Jason mounted up as well, and his horse grunted theatrically under his weight. It shifted on the spot, meandering a few steps sideways, and Dick reached out and put a hand on Jason’s shoulder as if that would stop the horses from bumping into each other.

His hand lingered after the horse settled, slid down Jason’s arm and threaded their fingers together for a moment, squeezing tight before finally letting go. No displays of affection outside in the moonlight, they had had that incredibly awkward talk with Bruce already. But Dick’s face was soft, his expression open and warm.

“Ready to go save an avatar of daylight?” he asked with a grin.

“Why not,” Jason said with an ambivalent shrug, as if he hadn’t been counting down the days until he could be alone on the road with Dick.

Dick grinned again, fierce and bright like a wolf, and kicked his horse into motion, and they set off together.


End file.
